Press release

• Munich Re participates as syndicate leader in the first cross-national insurance solution for hurricane and earthquake risks 
  
  
• Insurance cover for countries in the Caribbean in place for hurricane season 2007
   
• Munich Re Board member Georg Daschner: "For us, Changing Gear also means involvement in innovative insurance concepts worldwide."
  
  

Munich Re is taking the syndicate lead in reinsuring the "Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility" (CCRIF), which offers 16 countries in the Caribbean insurance cover against hurricanes and earthquakes. The CCRIF is being launched on 1 June 2007 in good time for the start of this year’s hurricane season.

Munich Re has been working for some time with the World Bank and London broker Benfield and has been closely involved in the CCRIF coverage concept from the outset. The CCRIF carries losses up to US$ 10m itself and obtains additional capacity of US$ 110m on the international reinsurance and capital markets. Munich Re takes the lead reinsurer role in this solution. Furthermore, together with the World Bank it has devised a natural catastrophe swap allowing risks amounting to US$ 20m assumed by the World Bank to be passed on to Munich Re. This means that emerging countries will use the capital market for the first time to cover natural catastrophe risks using derivative products.

Georg Daschner, Munich Re Board member responsible for Europe and Latin America, at the launch of the CCRIF: "We are proud to have been able to support the development of the concept from the outset with our extensive risk-assessment and risk-management expertise." Daschner added that the CCRIF was a role model for other regions: "The innovative coverage concept developed here can be exported to other countries. For us, this means new and profitable business opportunities." He went on to cite CCRIF as a typical example of Munich Re’s Changing Gear programme: "We are convinced that we can achieve profitable growth through new concepts."

At the same time, such new coverage concepts can provide protection against the risk of natural hazards also in heavily exposed regions. "This was previously not possible on such a scale. This way we can help the people in the regions concerned", explained Daschner.

So far, the following states have subscribed to the CCRIF: Anguilla, Antigua und Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts und Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad und Tobago, the Turks und Caicos Islands.

Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft
signed Daschner           signed Dr. Lawrence