California Earthquake Authority lifts Ursa Re 2026-1 cat bond to target $900m of reinsurance

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) is aiming to meaningfully upsize its latest catastrophe bond sponsorship, with the target for the issuance raised 50% to now $900 million of fully-collateralized earthquake reinsurance limit from the new Ursa Re Ltd. (Series 2026-1) transaction, Artemis understands.

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) returned to the catastrophe bond market in late October, with an initial target to secure $600 million of reinsurance protection from its latest cat bond sponsorship.

Given market conditions and how conducive the pricing environment is for sponsors of cat bonds at this time, it’s no surprise to learn the CEA is looking to increase the amount of reinsurance limit from its latest deal, while we’re told it is also targeting lower pricing for the protection as well.

The CEA has $2.875 billion of outstanding catastrophe bond coverage still in-force at this time and currently sits in 4th place in our cat bond sponsors leaderboard.

When we last reported on the CEA’s reinsurance risk transfer tower, the earthquake insurer had limit of just over $8.2 billion in-force at the end of April 2026, with the catastrophe bond market providing around 35% of that total.

This new Ursa Re 2026-1 cat bond will become the 25th visit to the market by the California Earthquake Authority (CEA) we have tracked.

View details of every catastrophe bond sponsored by the CEA in the Artemis Deal Directory.

With the latest update to this deal, Ursa Re Ltd. is now offering $900 million of notes across the two tranches of this Series 2026-1 cat bond issuance, up from the initial $600 million target.

The goal is to secure the CEA a now larger, roughly four year source of fully-collateralized California earthquake reinsurance protection on an indemnity trigger and annual aggregate basis.

What was initially a $350 million Series 2026-1 Class D tranche of notes are now offered at $500 million in size, we are told. The Class D notes have an initial expected loss of 2.68% and they were first offered to investors with price guidance in a range from 4% to 4.5%. That price guidance has now fallen to a revised range of 3.75% to 4%, we understand.

The initially $250 million Series 2026-1 Class H tranche of notes are now offered at $400 million in size. The Class H notes come with an initial expected loss of 6.35% and were first offered to investors with price guidance in a range from 8.5% to 9.5%. That price guidance has also been revised lower, at 8.25% to 8.5%, sources explained.

As we said in our first article on this new Ursa Re 2026-1 catastrophe bond, we believe the Class H notes have the highest expected loss for any tranche of catastrophe bonds that we have seen sponsored by the CEA.

At a $900 million issuance size, according to Artemis’ data this new cat bond for the CEA is now targeted to be its largest since 2017 and the earthquake insurers second largest cat bond sponsorship ever.

You can read all about this new Ursa Re Ltd. (Series 2026-1) catastrophe bond from the California Earthquake Authority (CEA) and every other cat bond ever issued in the extensive Artemis Deal Directory.