Generali awarded for its first cat bond

Lion I Re successfully recognised as “Non life transaction of the year” by Trading Risk.

Lion I Re, the first bond issued by Generali to protect against catastrophes, has won the “Non-life transaction of the year” award from Trading Risk, regarded as one of the most relevant players of the information sector of the Insurance Linked Securities (ILS) market. The Trading Risk Awards programme is held annually to reward the achievement of ILS market participants and was first launched in 2009. Nominations are judged by a panel of independent ILS executives. In particular this award refers to non-life transactions either breaking boundaries in non-life risk transfer market, or cementing the foundations of a core transaction, where the winner is an efficiently structured, well priced and successfully executed transaction.

Leveraging the consolidation of the Group’s reinsurance, this catastrophe bond allows us to further optimize the purchase of reinsurance protection while maintaining a good degree of flexibility and diversifying the panel of capacity providers in order to mitigate counterparty risk. In addition to representing the Group’s first step in the ILS sector, Lion I Re – issued in April 2014 for a period of three years - was awarded as the very first Indemnity bond designed to protect against storm surges in Europe; which enables Generali the opportunity to lead the way in the European market of Insurance Linked Securities and to optimize protection against catastrophic events by transferring part of the related risk to the bond investors.

The success in the capital market has allowed increase protection provided to Generali at €190 million from the initial €150 million. According to the terms of the offering, if a windstorm generates losses to Generali Group at a level higher than €400 million in a pre-defined region comprising 16 European countries, part of the losses of Generali Group will be repaid through the coverage provided by this bond, integrating what will be repaid by the traditional reinsurance market.