Howden Re has launched Novark, an insurance management and securities administration platform for insurance-linked investments. The platform is designed to give institutional investors near real-time information on their positions while helping insurers and reinsurers manage third-party capital.
Novark brings investment data, administration and reporting into a single digital environment. Howden Re said investors will be able to monitor insurance-linked investments more closely and respond to changes without relying on fragmented information from multiple participants.
The launch targets infrastructure used across the alternative reinsurance capital market. Insurance-linked securities and other forms of third-party capital have become an established source of reinsurance capacity, but operational systems remain divided across different firms and data environments.
Howden Re said this fragmentation makes it harder for investors to obtain consistent information on their exposure. Novark is intended to provide more frequent updates and a clearer view of investment performance.
The platform will also serve insurers and reinsurers seeking institutional capital. They will be able to use the same infrastructure for administration and management of external capital supporting insurance risk.
Novark Group will operate through Novark Management Ltd., a Bermuda-incorporated insurance management and securities administration company currently known as Alternative Risk Management (Bermuda) Limited. The business will serve institutional investors and ILS funds, as well as insurers, reinsurers and brokers.
The platform combines insurance and securities administration with Howden’s existing reinsurance and capital markets capabilities. It will also draw on the group’s analytics and advisory businesses for transactions requiring additional structuring or risk analysis.
Razi Naqvi, currently Chief Innovation Officer at Howden Re, is leading development and implementation of Novark. He said insurance risk has become a larger institutional asset class while the infrastructure supporting investment in it has developed more slowly.
Naqvi said institutional investors expect greater visibility into how their capital is performing. Novark is designed to provide near real-time investment data so users can monitor positions and make decisions using current information.
Investors should be able to see what is happening to their investment, understand it and act on it. Bringing market participants onto the same digital infrastructure should make insurance-linked investments easier to administer.
Razi Naqvi, currently Chief Innovation Officer at Howden Re
Alex Bridges, CEO of Howden Re Bermuda, said alternative capital already represents an important part of global reinsurance capacity. He said Novark is intended to support both established risk-transfer structures and newer transaction formats.
Howden Re plans to use the platform throughout the lifecycle of insurance risk-transfer transactions. This includes structuring and advisory work, followed by administration, governance and reporting once capital has been deployed.
Bermuda will serve as the operating base for the platform. The jurisdiction already hosts a substantial concentration of reinsurers, ILS vehicles and institutional capital involved in insurance risk transfer.
Novark expands Howden Re’s infrastructure around alternative capital rather than creating a new class of risk-transfer product. Its main function is to give investors and reinsurance counterparties a shared system for monitoring, administering and reporting insurance-linked investments.
