Catastrophe Bonds Research Articles

Are Catastrophe Bonds the Alchemy of the Apocalypse?

Like other security instruments prevalent in the capital market, catastrophe bonds are yet to achieve an autonomous status worthy of a separate scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service. Instead, the tax liabilities of catastrophe bonds are decomposed into the several components of instruments making up a catastrophe bond and taxed accordingly. This inability to directly tax catastrophe bonds robs the U.S. government the capacity to precisely influence the behavior of industry participants.

Economic Catastrophe Bonds: Inefficient Market or Inadequate Model?

Coval, Jurek, and Stafford (2009, CJS hereafter) claim that senior CDX tranches, which resemble economic catastrophe bonds, are overpriced relative to index options. We show that this result is due to their problematic calibration procedure and restrictive model assumptions. A simple correction of the calibration procedure reduces the overpricing of the most senior tranche by 80%. Moreover, an extremely parsimonious model with essentially no free parameters proposed by Hull and White (2004) can price CDX tranches and index options well. Therefore, it is difficult to conclude that CDX tranches are mispriced simply because CJS cannot price them.

The Shareholder Wealth Effects of Insurance Securitization: Preliminary Evidence from the Catastrophe Bond Market

Insurance securitization has long been hailed as an important tool to increase the underwriting capacity for companies exposed to catastrophe-related risks. However, global volumes of insurance securitization have remained surprisingly low to date which raises questions over its benefits. In this paper, we examine changes in the market value of insurance and reinsurance firms which announce their engagement in insurance securitization by issuing catastrophe (Cat) bonds. Consistent with the hitherto underwhelming contribution of Cat bonds to global catastrophe coverage, we do not find evidence that Cat bonds lead to strong wealth gains for shareholders in the issuing firm. More importantly, we report large variations in the distribution of wealth effects in response to the issue announcement. We show that the wealth effects for shareholders in firms which issue Cat bonds appear to be driven by explanations according to which Cat bonds offer cost savings relative to other forms of catastrophe risk management (and less by the potential of Cat bonds to hedge catastrophe risk). Thus, abnormal returns are particularly large for issues by firms which face low levels of loss uncertainty (which reduces the information acquisition costs in financial markets) as well as for issues during periods when prices for catastrophe coverage (including Cat bonds) are low.

Longevity Risk from the Perspective of the ILS Markets

This paper compares and contrasts the evolution of the longevity risk transfer market with the development of the Catastrophe Bond Market, more formally known as the Insurance Linked Securities (ILS) Market. The ILS market is small; the longevity market is potentially enormous. The ILS market has been around for some 15 years; the Longevity market less than 5 years. The ILS market has had a heterogeneous approach to loss measures; the longevity market has striven for homogeneity. The ILS market has used security, i.e. bond, structures; the longevity market uses derivative, i.e. swap, structures. Nearly all ILS transactions cover “event” risk; nearly all longevity structures are “aggregate”. The paper reflects on these and other differences and speculates on the nature of the two approaches. The Geneva Papers (2011) 36, 501–515. doi:10.1057/gpp.2011.18

Financial Adaptation to Climate Change via Public Interest Weather Derivatives and Catastrophe Bonds in the Wake of the Financial Meltdown

Anthropogenic climate change is rapidly becoming one of the most pressing and troublesome sources for systemic risk in the global economy. The potential impacts on developed and especially developing economies necessitates the employment of cutting edge and specifically tailored financial solutions to transfer various climatic risks to those in the capital markets who could bear them most economically. In the wake of the recent financial meltdown, however, risk transferring financial technology faces increased skepticism and suspicion with respect to its capability to reduce systemic risks. Rather, financial engineering is blamed for increasing systemic risks, as evidenced by the contribution of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and credit default swaps (CDS) to the evolution of the subprime crisis and the collapse of major financial institutions. Given the structuring similarities between catastrophe bonds and CDOs on the one hand, and between Over-The-Counter (OTC) weather derivatives and CDS on the other, two main questions must urgently be addressed: (1) whether the root causes for the recent financial crisis also apply to and call into question climatic risk shifting technology, and (2) what inherent drawbacks, if any, in Cat bonds and OTC weather derivatives should be addressed in order to lower the likelihood of a “climate bubble.” Shedding light on these key questions will contribute to the debate surrounding the future regulatory landscape of risk shifting financial technology in general, and that of climatic risk transfer in particular.

Catastrophe Bonds, Reinsurance, and the Optimal Collateralization of Risk Transfer

AbstractCatastrophe bonds feature full collateralization of the underlying risk transfer and thus abandon the reinsurance principle of economizing on collateral through diversification of risk transfer. Our analysis demonstrates that this feature places limits on catastrophe bond penetration, even if the structure possesses frictional cost advantages over reinsurance. However, we also show that catastrophe bonds have important uses when buyers and reinsurers cannot contract over the division of assets in the event of insolvency and, more generally, cannot write contracts with a full menu of state‐contingent payments. In this environment, segregation of collateral—in the form of multiple reinsurance companies, as well as catastrophe bond vehicles—can ameliorate inefficiencies due to reinsurance contracting constraints by improving welfare for those exposed to default risk. Numerical simulation illustrates how catastrophe bonds improve efficiency in market niches with correlated risks, or with uneven exposure of buyers to reinsurer default.

The Risk Implications of Insurance Securitization: Do Catastrophe Bonds Lower the Default Risk of Issuers?

Catastrophe (Cat) bonds are insurance securitization vehicles which are supposed to transfer catastrophe-related underwriting risk from issuers to capital markets. This paper addresses key, unanswered questions concerning Cat bonds and offers the following results. First, our findings show firms that issue Cat bonds exhibit less risky underwriting portfolios with less exposure to catastrophe risks and overall less need to hedge catastrophe risk. These results show that the access to the market for insurance securitization is easiest for firms with less risky portfolios. Second, firms that issue Cat bonds are found to experience a reduction in their default risk relative to non-issuing firms and our results, therefore, demonstrate that Cat bonds provide effective catastrophe hedging for issuing firms. Third, firms with less catastrophe exposure, increase their catastrophe exposure following an issue. Therefore, our paper cautions that the ability to hedge catastrophe risk causes some firms to seek additional catastrophe risk.

Valuing Clustering in Catastrophe Derivatives

The role that clustering in activity and/or severity plays in catastrophe modeling and derivative valuation is a key aspect that has been overlooked in the recent literature. Here, we propose two marked point processes to account for these features. The first approach assumes the points are driven by a stochastic hazard rate modulated by a Markov chain while marks are drawn from a regime specific distribution. In the second approach, the points are driven by a self-exciting process while marks are drawn from a fixed distribution. Within this context, we provide a unified approach to efficiently value catastrophe options -- such as those embedded in catastrophe bonds. Our approach is based on deriving the valuation PIDE and utilizes transforms to provide semi-analytical closed form solutions. This contrasts with most prior works where the valuation formulae require computing several infinite sums together with numerical integration.

Flood Insurance Bonds Pricing Based on the Monte Carlo Simulation

China is one of the countries with most serious natural disasters where the damage caused by flood is larger than any other natural disasters. The introduction of catastrophe bonds would be a good channel for transferring the catastrophic risk. Therefore, based on the principle of non-life actuarial, this paper figured out the distribution fitting for the losses and occurrences of flood disasters and applied Monte Carlo simulation to calculate the total loss of flood disasters and its corresponding probability in China. By using the capital asset model and Catastrophe bond pricing model, the yields and prices of flood disaster bond can be obtained, which can be referred and learned for the issuance of flood disasters bonds in the future.

Секъюритизация страховых рисков и защита от экстремальных убытков

Natural disasters are extremely destructive power and duration on the planet occur rather rarely, but in this case should build in advance of system protection and response, which includes immediate measures to assist victims by the State, a set of measures on risk management and the full participation of the insurance industry. For this purpose, since the mid-1990s insurance corporations resort to such a form of alternative financing upcoming and possible costs as a transfer of risks to the stock market through the issuance of catastrophe bonds. The article contains an analysis of these bonds.

Minimization of Trigger Error in Cat-in-a-Box Parametric Earthquake Catastrophe Bonds with an Application to Costa Rica

Catastrophe bonds are used by the insurance and reinsurance industry and by national governments to cede catastrophic risks to the financial markets. Triggers whose outcomes depend only on the earthquake parameter data published by respected third parties can be implemented to determine without moral hazard whether the bond principal is paid for a certain event. Sensitivity analyses to different design assumptions show that these transactions are often affected by trigger error, unless a sufficiently dense geographic discretization is selected to define the trigger zones. A process of general application to any geography is developed to minimize the trigger error. The methodology is illustrated with the design of a hypothetical cat bond for Costa Rica.

Market-Implied Spread for Earthquake CAT Bonds: Financial Implications of Engineering Decisions

In the event of natural and man-made disasters, owners of large-scale infrastructure facilities (assets) need contingency plans to effectively restore the operations within the acceptable timescales. Traditionally, the insurance sector provides the coverage against potential losses. However, there are many problems associated with this traditional approach to risk transfer including counterparty risk and litigation. Recently, a number of innovative risk mitigation methods, termed alternative risk transfer (ART) methods, have been introduced to address these problems. One of the most important ART methods is catastrophe (CAT) bonds. The objective of this article is to develop an integrative model that links engineering design parameters with financial indicators including spread and bond rating. The developed framework is based on a four-step structural loss model and transformed survival model to determine expected excess returns. We illustrate the framework for a seismically designed bridge using two unique CAT bond contracts. The results show a nonlinear relationship between engineering design parameters and market-implied spread.

Calibrating CAT Bonds for Mexican Earthquakes

AbstractThis article examines the calibration of a real parametric catastrophe bond (CAT bond) for earthquakes sponsored by the Mexican government, which is of a high interest as it delivers several policy‐relevant findings. The results demonstrate that a combination of reinsurance and CAT bond is optimal in the sense that it provides coverage for a lower cost and lower exposure at default than reinsurance itself. A hybrid CAT bond for earthquakes is also priced in order to reduce the basis and moral risk borne by the sponsor and to reflect the value of the loss by several variables.

Catastrophe risk management with counterparty risk using alternative instruments

Since weather-related disasters have an upward trend-cycle movement and the global financial crisis has revealed the severity of counterparty risk, this study reinvestigates and incorporates the catastrophe characteristics and counterparty risk into the valuation of catastrophe products. First, the excess of loss reinsurance is traditionally used to reduce catastrophe risk. Its premium is estimated under these catastrophe characteristics. Second, this paper looks into the price of catastrophe futures and spread option contracts that are based on a catastrophe index. The (re)insurer can apply these exchange-traded derivatives to reduce catastrophe risk without counterparty risk. Third, this paper takes counterparty risk into account to value catastrophe bonds and catastrophe equity puts. Thus, the fair valuations of these two instruments are revealed to the buyer.

Catastrophe Bond and Risk Modeling: A Review and Calibration Using Chinese Earthquake Loss Data

ABSTRACT Earthquake risks are attracting increased attention as a result of recent catastrophic events such as the Wenchuan earthquake in China. This article aims to select, tailor, and develop loss modeling methods for catastrophic insurance. We review the state-of-the-art approaches in modeling catastrophe losses for catastrophe bonds’ modeling and pricing. The methods are applied to the 1966–2008 losses resulted from the earthquakes in China. Various error measures are proposed for validating catastrophe modeling. Results suggest that the double exponential jump-diffusion model fits the data well.

Pricing of Reinsurance Contracts in the Presence of Catastrophe Bonds

AbstractA methodology for pricing of reinsurance contracts in the presence of a catastrophe bond is developed. An important advantage of this approach is that it allows for the pricing of reinsurance contracts consistent with the observed market prices of catastrophe bonds on the same underlying risk process.Within the proposed methodology, an appropriate financial pricing formula is derived, under a market implied risk neutral probability measure for both a catastrophe bond and an aggregate excess of loss reinsurance contract, using a generalised Fourier transform. Efficient numerical methods for the evaluation of this formula, such as the Fast Fourier transform and Fractional Fast Fourier transform, are considered.The methodology is illustrated on several examples including Pareto and Gamma claim severities.

An Analysis of Government Guarantees and the Functioning of Asset-Backed Securities Markets

Mortgage securitization has been tried several times in the United States and each time it has failed amid a credit bust. In what is now a familiar recurring history, during the credit boom, underwriting standards are violated and guarantees are inadequately funded; subsequently, defaults increase and investors in mortgage-backed securities attempt to dump their investments. ; We focus on a specific market failure associated with asset-backed securitization and propose a tailored government remedy. Our analysis of loan market equilibriums shows that the additional liquidity provided by securitization may (or may not) lower primary loan rates, but such liquidity comes at a cost. More specifically, if guarantee-sensitive investors doubt the credit quality of asset-backed bonds, significant risk premiums can develop. If a financial crisis ensues, securitization can disappear from the market entirely, leaving banks that originate just the highest quality loans as the only source of credit. This abrupt increase in lending standards can tighten credit, exacerbate asset price declines, and impinge on economic growth. ; We argue that an institutional structure for stemming runs, analogous to the current set up for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, could be deployed to insure pre-specified asset-backed instruments. Such an insurer would likely benefit from the accumulated information and infrastructure that is embodied in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Hence, the provision of federally-backed catastrophic insurance could provide a rationale for restructuring the housing-related GSEs towards a public purpose. Regardless of its institutional structure, a federally-backed catastrophic bond insurer would provide greater financial stability and ensure credit is provided at reasonable cost both in times of prosperity and during downturns. Moreover, the explicit pricing of the government-backed guarantee would mitigate the market distortions that have been created by implicit government guarantees during prosperity.

Discussion

Discussion

An Analysis of Government Guarantees and the Functioning of Asset-Backed Securities Markets

Mortgage securitization has been tried several times in the United States and each time it has failed amid a credit bust. In what is now a familiar recurring history, during the credit boom, underwriting standards are violated and guarantees are inadequately funded subsequently, defaults increase and investors in mortgage-backed securities attempt to dump their investments. We focus on a specific market failure associated with asset-backed securitization and propose a tailored government remedy. Our analysis of loan market equilibriums shows that the additional liquidity provided by securitization may (or may not) lower primary loan rates, but such liquidity comes at a cost. More specifically, if guarantee-sensitive investors doubt the credit quality of asset-backed bonds, significant risk premiums can develop. If a financial crisis ensues, securitization can disappear from the market entirely, leaving banks that originate just the highest quality loans as the only source of credit. This abrupt increase in lending standards can tighten credit, exacerbate asset price declines, and impinge on economic growth. We argue that an institutional structure for stemming 'runs,' analogous to the current set up for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, could be deployed to insure pre-specified asset-backed instruments. Such an insurer would likely benefit from the accumulated information and infrastructure that is embodied in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Hence, the provision of federally-backed catastrophic insurance could provide a rationale for restructuring the housing-related GSEs towards a public purpose. Regardless of its institutional structure, a federally-backed catastrophic bond insurer would provide greater financial stability and ensure credit is provided at reasonable cost both in times of prosperity and during downturns. Moreover, the explicit pricing of the government-backed guarantee would mitigate the market distortions that have been created by implicit government guarantees during prosperity.

Pricing index-based catastrophe bonds: Part 1: Formulation and discretization issues using a numerical PDE approach

This work is the first installment in a two-part series, and focuses on the development of a numerical PDE approach to price components of a Bermudan-style callable catastrophe (CAT) bond. The bond is based on two underlying stochastic variables; the PCS index which posts quarterly estimates of industry-wide hurricane losses as well as a single-factor CIR interest rate model for the three-month LIBOR. The aggregate PCS index is analogous to losses claimed under traditional reinsurance in that it is used to specify a reinsurance layer. The proposed CAT bond model contains a Bermudan-style call feature designed to allow the reinsurer to minimize their interest rate risk exposure on making substantial fixed coupon payments using capital from the reinsurance premium. Numerical PDE methods are the fundamental strategy for pricing early-exercise constraints, such as the Bermudan-style call feature, into contingent claim models. Therefore, the objective and unique contribution of this first installment in the two-part series is to develop a formulation and discretization strategy for the proposed CAT bond model utilizing a numerical PDE approach. Object-oriented code design is fundamental to the numerical methods used to aggregate the PCS index, and implement the call feature. Therefore, object-oriented design issues that relate specifically to the development of a numerical PDE approach for the component of the proposed CAT bond model that depends on the PCS index and LIBOR are described here. Formulation, numerical methods and code design issues that relate to aggregating the PCS index and introducing the call option are the subject of the companion paper.