ILS: making an opportunity out of a crisis

COVID-19 is first and foremost a human tragedy. But, like other crises, it is pushing investors towards simple, liquid assets that offer underlying cash flows and that are not correlated with other asset classes, as AkinovA’s Henri Winand told Solomon Teague.

The onset of the COVID-19 crisis, and in particular the market volatility that has accompanied it, has increased interest in insurance-linked securities (ILS), according to Henri Winand, CEO of ILS trading platform AkinovA.

“Judging from the level of interest in ILS and electronic risk transfer we experience, I suspect the COVID-19 outbreak will have the same catalyst effect as happened post 2008,” says Winand.

“The insured risk, credit risks and contractual certainty all have to be organised correctly to truly unlock ILS growth.”