Issued by Vita Capital IV Ltd., a Cayman Island special purpose vehicle (SPV), the securities provide fully collateralized coverage against all excess mortality risk including infectious disease, terrorism, and earthquake. The program was solely structured and placed by Swiss Re Capital Markets Corporation.
Pandemic flu risk was assessed using the RMS® Infectious Disease Model, which was first released in 2007 and is the only model of its type available in the market. A specific model for the ongoing H1N1 pandemic was also incorporated, taking account of possible mutations and antiviral resistance. "Catastrophe risk models allow us to capture extreme events impacting today's population which are not adequately addressed by historical data," commented Dr. Maura Sullivan, epidemiologist in the Emerging Risk Solutions division at RMS. "Even though infectious disease scenarios in the model may share the same viral characteristics as past pandemics they are not mirrored by the same medical conditions, as we can look at factors like today's vaccine development and government response measures, which will dramatically affect mortality rates." The model scenarios are developed using scientific data and mathematical and empirical models, as well as the experience of epidemiologists, virologists and medical doctors.
"While insurance linked securities had a slow start in 2009, the Vita bond demonstrates that interest in this asset class is alive and accelerating and there’s appetite for new approaches to modeling risk for transactions covering perils like pandemic flu," said Peter Nakada, managing director of RiskMarkets, RMS' dedicated insurance-linked securities team. "RMS is leading the way in researching emerging risks, and will continue to facilitate the broadening of the risks that can be securitized in the future."
About RMS
Risk Management Solutions is the world’s leading provider of products and services for catastrophe risk management. More than 400 leading insurers, reinsurers, trading companies, and other financial institutions rely on RMS models to quantify, manage, and transfer risk. Founded at Stanford University in 1988, RMS serves clients today from offices in the U.S., Bermuda, the U.K., France, Switzerland, India, China, and Japan. For more information, visit our website at www.rms.com.