NU Online News Service, April 5, 2:52 p.m. EDT
Two broker-dealers have placed $240 million of insurance-linked securities on behalf of Allianz to protect against hurricanes and earthquake risk.
GC Securities, part of the reinsurance brokerage firm Guy Carpenter, a subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies and Swiss Re Capital Markets, a subsidiary of reinsurer Swiss Re, placed the insurance-linked securities through Blue Danube Ltd.
The two notes of $120 million with three year terms, provide per occurrence protection to Allianz Argos, a subsidiary of the insurer Allianz.
The bonds are for natural disasters utilizing catastrophe modeling provided by AIR Worldwide.
The bonds, issued by Blue Danube Ltd., provide coverage for hurricanes affecting the United States and related losses in the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico. The bonds also provide securities for earthquake risk affecting the United States and Canada.
“Allianz hired Swiss Re and Guy Carpenter to be equal in their roles as joint structuring agents and joint book runners in the transaction,” said Cory Anger, global head of ILS structuring at GC Securities.
Commissioning more than one party to lead a bond placement lets Allianz reap the benefit of utilizing the strengths, analytical resources and investor relations of two companies in one transaction. “Allianz gets the benefit of protection of Blue Danube,” says Anger.
Anger says so far this year there have been a total of five insurance linked security placements by GC Securities totaling $895 million, and the industry total is more than $1.8 billion.
