Over the years of operating the CATEX Global Exchange and the Pivot Point Transaction Systems CATEX has been struck by the absence of live, real time news sources in the reinsurance industry. Throughout the history of CATEX our main focus has been to deploy Internet based real time trading tools to the global reinsurance broking and underwriting communities. Other industries which trade in “real time” make constant use of real time news information. Capital market trading systems are virtually married to financial reporting news systems as traders seek to gain advantage by quickly digesting changes in economic conditions. As real time reinsurance trading systems such as the CATEX Global Exchange and the CATEX Pivot Point Systems gain increasing acceptance we believe there exists a role for real time information related to news which affects the reinsurance industry. Knowledge of prospective or current losses affects prices. News which could impact domestic situations in foreign countries could affect pricing. In short, there is a reason why for hundreds of years the daily casualty report has appeared in Lloyds List. And there is a reason why the Associated Press and Reuters news clippings are updated hourly in the Underwriting Room at Lloyds. Information about the condition of your insured risks is critical to your solvency. CATEXTV does not compete against global news gathering organizations but does offer regularly scheduled live updates of events affecting the industry. These events are culled from many publicly available news sources and from certain trends we observe on our systems. We are bound by confidentiality prohibitions regarding data on our systems however our continuous monitoring of our systems provides us with a foundation and background that, at times, permits us to analyze news items in a manner others are unable to do.
CATEXTV is an initiative of The Catastrophe Risk Exchange, Inc. (CATEX) a company with offices in the United Kingdom and the United States. The main office of the company is in Princeton, New Jersey. CATEXTV reviews news on a daily basis and selects news of interest to the international reinsurance industry for dissemination on its system. The selection process is made by the editorial staff based solely on our judgment of the newsworthiness of a particular news item. While CATEXTV evaluates the source of news items prior to dissemination CATEXTV cannot guarantee the accuracy of news stories.
CATEXTV produces and broadcasts its programs from its offices in Princeton, NJ. Our equipment is the Newtek Tricaster Live Production Studio which is a live switcher, titler, media streamer, media capture device and media storage device all in one. Our camera equipment are Sony Mini DV Cameras and we utilize wireless microphones, camera mount lights and a portable Blue/Green Chromakey “green screen” for our background shots. The streaming video is produced in Princeton and emanates from our hosting operations at DataPipe, Inc., in Newark, NJ.
To learn more about CATEX and the Pivot Point Transaction System as well as other services offered by CATEX please visit the website at www.catex.com.
CATEXTV has five live broadcasts weekly Monday through Friday. The broadcasts begin at 11:30 am EDT (1630 GMT) and each lasts approximately 20 minutes. There are no commercials on CATEXTV and we offer no editorial opinion. We include the news that we believe is pertinent for that day’s broadcast and we then sign off. Each of the preceding three broadcasts will remain available on our site for viewing should you be unable to view the broadcast live. In the second phase of CATEXTV we will increase the broadcasts to daily frequency. Plans are also in place to increase the broadcast frequency to several times daily if the site traffic warrants. We can and will break in at any time if we believe an event of import is occurring or has occurred. We are continuously monitoring news sources throughout the day and will not hesitate to break in with a Bulletin if we believe it appropriate. We assure you that our “newsworthiness” criteria for such bulletins will be rigid.
CATEXTV utilizes the services of industry experts in the international reinsurance industry to comment upon and analyze certain stories of interest to its viewing audience. These experts are not compensated by CATEXTV and the views expressed by them are their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CATEXTV or of CATEX or the licensees of any CATEX system. CATEXTV is continuously recruiting on air correspondents and analysts. If you are interested in participating please contact Frank Fortunato at frank.fortunato@catex.com.
In the United States please contact Frank Fortunato at 609-683-0888 or email frank.fortunato@catex.com. Address in the United States is 475 Wall St., Princeton, NJ 08540 In the United Kingdom please contact Tom Bailey at 207-663-5773 or email tom.bailey@catex.com. Address in the United Kingdom is 10 Fenchurch Avenue, London, U.K., EC3M 7HA
If you have news or have seen news or wish to report news to us please contact us toll free in the US at 1-866-67-CATEX (1-866-672-2839). If you wish to email us please do so at news@catex.com. Be sure to include your contact information if we want to reach you to put you on air during the production.
If you want to include CATEXTV as part of your company’s regular press release distribution we invite you to do so. The most recent 20 press releases we have receive will be listed in chronological order and we maintain an alphabetical listing of all companies from whom we have received releases. Due to the heavy volume of press releases we will maintain corporate press releases for only 30 days. Send your company’s press release to pressrelease@catex.com. Include contact information so we may verify please.
Five minutes prior to each live broadcast we will be sending e-mails to an email list we maintain of individuals who wish to be reminded or notified prior to a live broadcast. Included in the email will be a link back to the CATEXTV page as well as a countdown clock showing time remaining until the broadcast. We will also utilize this notification service in advance of any breaking news bulletin. To be included in the email notification please click here.
If you have a video that you believe would be of interest to the international reinsurance community and which is newsworthy consider posting it here. If you have posted a video previously you will already have a password permitting you to post a video on your own. If you are new to this feature you must wait until CATEXTV can both identify you and approve the video you wish to post. Please understand that our interest is only to serve as a verifying check as this is a publicly available website. You will note that you will be able to post your video under any number of reinsurance oriented categories. Please take care to title your video appropriately so that a potential viewer can judge whether they wish to see it.
