Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 3rd May 2020, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics.To ensure you never miss a thing or get our email alerts for every article we publish.Insurance and reinsurance broker Aon has revealed a raft of pay cuts affecting its staff around the globe, as well as other expense saving initiatives, all of which reflects the expectation that the broking industry may face particularly acute pain as a result of the Covid-19 economic slowdown.

Retrocessional reinsurance focused fund manager Markel CATCo Investment Management and tech focused hedge fund investor with a liking for reinsurance-linked returns D.E.Shaw & Co.

are involved in a dispute over a release of collateral related to industry-loss triggered derivative contracts, we have learned.For our third Artemis Live audio and video interview I had the pleasure of discussing the state of the market with Paul Schultz, CEO of Aon Securities, the capital markets, investment banking and insurance-linked securities (ILS) structuring arm of the insurance and reinsurance broker.Analysts from investment bank UBS have added 50% to their estimate for the eventual insurance and reinsurance industry loss from the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, lifting the top-end of the range to $60 billion.

Markel Corporation reported its first-quarter 2020 results yesterday and in its report the company warned of the potential hit to its insurance-linked securities (ILS) operations from the Covid-19 pandemic, which is perhaps partly evidenced in a -4% decline in assets under management at Markel’s flagship ILS fund manager Nephila Capital.Speaking at the reinsurance giants annual general meeting this morning, Munich Re CEO Joachim Wenning noted that while the ultimate cost of the Covid-19 pandemic would be “substantial” he expects that for the reinsurer this will be manageable and the company may benefit from opportunities as well.Senior insurance and reinsurance industry executives Evan Greenberg, Chairman and CEO of Chubb, and John Neal, CEO of Lloyd’s of London, both agree that the global pandemic caused by the coronavirus could result in the largest industry loss for the sector in history.

The California Wildfire Fund, which was established last year to back some of the wildfire liabilities related to utilities operating in the state, will go back to the reinsurance market to seek a renewal and an expansion of its first program for 2020 and beyond.Head of PCS, Tom Johansmeyer, tells Artemis that there’s a real sense across the marketplace that certain large, complex insurance towers are going to be affected by silent pandemic risk.Cincinnati Financial Corporation’s CEO Steven Johnston said the company’s property catastrophe reinsurance panel will be expected to “follow our fortunes” on any Covid-19 pandemic related losses that fall under that program’s coverage for the re/insurer.This is not every article published on Artemis during the last week, just the most popular, some of which were published over a week ago.

.To ensure you always stay up to date with Artemis and never miss a story subscribe to our weekly email newsletter which is delivered every Wednesday.Get listed in our ...——————————————————————— of relevance to the insurance-linked securities (ILS), catastrophe bond and reinsurance capital markets.Read Covid-19 coronavirus related news & analysis .