Generali enters reinsurance agreement with €200m cat bond

Italian insurer Assicurazioni Generali said on July 10 that it returned to the insurance -linked securities (ILS) market with a €200 million cat bond on floods and windstorms in Europe and earthquakes in Italy.

Generali has entered into a reinsurance agreement with Lion II Re DAC, an Irish special purpose company, providing per occurrence cover in respect of the Generali group losses from Italian earthquakes, European windstorms and floods over a four-year period.

The Lion II Re transaction transfers part of these risks to the bond investors, protecting the Ganerali against catastrophes. Lion II Re DAC has issued a single tranche of notes in an amount of €200 million in order to fund its obligations under the reinsurance agreement. The transaction is the first indemnity trigger Rule 144A catastrophe bond to cover multiple European perils and the first to provide protection for European flood risk. The notes have been placed with capital markets investors.

“This new product confirms the Group’s strategy started in 2014 with Lion I Re aimed at transferring part of the risk to the capital market through innovative bonds,” said Valter Trevisani, group chief Insurance officer of Generali. “This latest product has proved to be equally attractive to potential investors as our previous issues. It allows us to further optimize the purchase of reinsurance protection maintaining a good degree of flexibility and mitigating the counterparty risks by expanding the providers’ panel”.

Group chief financial officer of Generali, Luigi Lubelli, added: “For Generali, this is the third ILS bond over the last 3 years, and the success achieved so far confirms it reached a well-established presence in the ILS market. This tool, and more generally the alternative techniques to transfer risks, represents the innovative and flexible approach with which the Group intends to implement its capital strategy”.

The demand from capital market investors has allowed the protection provided to Generali a premium of 3 percent per annum on the €200 million cover under the reinsurance agreement, which Lion II Re DAC will in turn pay to investors as interest on the notes. According to the terms of the offering all of a portion of the interest amount and the principal payable in respect of the notes will be reduced in case of losses at the charge of Generali due to Italian earthquakes, European windstorms or European floods which will exceed a predefined threshold for each peril.

The Lion II transaction follows the issuance in 2014 of Generali’s first catastrophe bond, Lion I, providing cover in respect of Europe windstorms only and the issuance in 2016 of the Horse Capital I bond providing Generali with cover in respect of increases in the loss ratio of its motor third party liability business.

The cover provided to Generali under Lion II is fully collateralized by highly rated assets through the whole risk period. The Group will continue to monitor closely this market, and intend to play a major role in this market availing itself of ILS tools in its capital management strategy and risk transfer.

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