Insurance Capital Markets Research (ICMR) has launched an index tracking publicly listed global insurance and reinsurance companies that control syndicates at Lloyd’s.
The ICMR (Re)Insurance Speciality Equity index (RISX) is the first of its kind and index company, Moorgate Benchmarks, has been selected as its calculator and administrator.
ICMR said the index aims to offer a more targeted exposure to specialist (re)insurance underwriting than more generalist, existing benchmarks, by providing investors with an equity proxy to compare against the reported pro forma aggregate results of Lloyd’s.
Using a transparent weighting algorithm based on reported premiums written, RISX seeks to give a more appropriate mix of underlying risk than traditional market cap methodologies, while ensuring sufficient liquidity in the underlying.
Markus Gesmann, co-founder of ICMR, said: “This index is a first in our industry, opening up the potential for new research in relation to more liquid Lloyd’s-related investments, as well as providing alternative metrics to measure and benchmark performance.”
Gareth Parker, chairman and chief indexing officer of Moorgate Benchmarks, added: “ICMR’s insurance markets expertise and our index design input has resulted in a hugely interesting, important and tradable proxy for returns made from specialty (re)insurance business.”
Moorgate Benchmarks’ involvement in the RISX launch follows the announcement last Friday that it had launched its fixed income index calculation service.
