Catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities news

Despite softening spreads driven by record inflows of capital, catastrophe bonds continue to offer one of the widest net risk premia available across financial markets, according to a new report from Andrew Poreda, Vice President and Senior Research Analyst at Sage Advisory Services.

As the catastrophe bond market continues to expand and create further opportunities in the ILS market, there is also a growing demand being seen for portfolios that combine liquid cat bonds with carefully selected private ILS exposures, which according to Twelve Securis’ Cahal Doris, gives investors greater control over liquidity, diversification and risk-return objectives.

Hurricane Polo is rapidly intensifying off the southwestern coast of Mexico and the strengthening trend is expected to continue, while the track remains uncertain at this time, which has brought the $175 million IBRD CAR Mexico 2024 (Pacific) parametric catastrophe bond into focus this week.

Insurance-linked securities such as catastrophe bonds are seen as a complementary mechanism to help provide the necessary capital to transfer and fund the risks of large infrastructure projects in Asia, according to Lim Cheng Khai of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Moody’s has launched RiskInvestorIQ, a dedicated catastrophe risk analytics and portfolio management application to provide ILS investors and risk professionals with an environment to evaluate transactions and gauge their portfolio impact.

Insurance-linked securities investors must broaden their mandates or risk losing relevance with cedents in a softening reinsurance market flush with capacity, according to Shiv Kumar, CEO of Marsh Securities, speaking in an interview at the 2026 Rendez-Vous de Septembre.

The Bermuda Monetary Authority has confirmed that contracts under its proposed Parametric Special Purpose Insurer (PSPI) regulatory framework can be structured as reinsurance, derivatives, or swaps, so as long as the underlying risk transfer meets the applicable statutory and regulatory requirements.

Hong Kong’s new five-year plan highlights insurance-linked securities business and the ongoing development of its ILS regulatory regime as key strategic goals, with a PCC structure being explored for more cost-efficient ILS and catastrophe bond issuance, as well as ways to invigorate the investor side as well.

Given insurance-linked securities’ (ILS) ability to offer a bounded allocation whose premium compensates for real and imperfectly correlated tail risk, a new paper by Omnigence Asset Management suggests that ILS remains one of the most credible candidates for diversification when traditional stock-bond relationships falter.

Data-driven insurance distribution platform Bamboo Insurance Services has so far attracted $400 million of third-party funds to support its Greenshoots Re Ltd. collateralized reinsurance sidecar vehicle, recent IPO filings show.