Willis establishes catastrophe bond platform

Willis Capital Markets & Advisory (WCMA) has announced the launch of Resilience Re, which will serve as a platform to simplify client access to catastrophe bond capacity.

Resilience Re will offer clients low-cost access to reinsurance capacity sourced from the capital markets, thereby benefiting from cost efficiencies and expedited timelines to secure capacity, notes a statement from WCMA, part of global risk advisor, insurance and reinsurance broker, Willis Group Holdings.

The platform will provide access to dedicated reinsurance transformers with standardized reinsurance and securitization processes, the statement notes. The platform – which will provide access to dedicated reinsurance transformers with standardized reinsurance and securitization processes – will offer investors access to additional opportunities through a syndicated process, WCMA reports.

“By adding another source of capacity, Resilience Re will make our clients’ reinsurance programs themselves more resilient. The simplified process can integrate with the standard reinsurance placement or operate on a standalone basis,” John Cavanagh, global CEO of Willis Re, says in the statement.

“Efficiently transforming reinsurance risk to the capital markets expands the universe of risk transfer capacity for our clients and, at the same time, broadens the universe of available risks for investors,” suggests Tony Ursano, CEO of WCMA.

The new offering will further WCMA’s “involvement in underwriting, arranging and trading insurance and reinsurance risk,” Ursano says, adding that it reflects “Willis’s commitment to innovate and capitalize on opportunities in the growing ILS market.”