Archive for August, 2025

As per S&P Global Ratings, despite several catastrophe bonds defaulting following record-high insured losses from the California wildfires in early 2025 and through recent catastrophe years, the default rate across both rated and non-rated catastrophe bonds remains very low at just 2.3%.

There is just one week left until our next catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) conference, Artemis London 2025. Held in London on September 2nd, the event will feature a full-day of in-depth discussion about the ILS market and valuable networking. Register to attend and join the crowd.

As per a new commentary from Morningstar DBRS, the reinsurance market has seen rapid growth in available capital, which reflects both retained earnings and the growing role of third-party capital, including insurance-linked securities, which has added competitive pressure to pricing but also broadened the industry’s financial foundation.

Enstar, one of the largest legacy and run-off reinsurance specialists in the world, has launched its first direct third-party capital play, a $300 million casualty reinsurance sidecar named Scaur Hill Re Ltd. which is backed by a number of institutional investors, Artemis has learned.

Another private catastrophe bond issuance has come to light, as an Artex Risk Solutions owned and operated entity has issued a roughly US $40.6 million Artex Axcell Re (Series FE0003) cat bond lite transaction that being denominated in Japanese Yen suggests the underlying risk transfer arrangement likely covers perils within that country.

Technology advancements promise to transform modelling and analysis of weather and natural catastrophe perils and Planette, a company focused on long-range weather prediction technology, is aiming to provide more accurate forecasts and detect severe weather events weeks to six months in advance using its QubitCast system.

Record levels of catastrophe bond market issuance in 2025 are reshaping the pricing landscape, AM Best believes, but the rating agency sees no sign of a slow-down ahead, as “all indications point to continued growth.”

PartnerRe Capital Management, the specialist division of global reinsurer PartnerRe that manages third-party capital on behalf of investors and deploys it to reinsurance opportunities, has hired Benjamin Baltesar as Head of Portfolio and Analytics.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending August 24th 2025, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics. To ensure you never miss a thing subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates or get our email alerts for every article we publish.

As per David Flandro, Managing Director, Head of Industry Analysis and Strategic Advisory at reinsurance broker Howden Re, “if it wasn’t obvious already, we are now firmly in the hard market softening phase of the rating cycle.”