California FAIR Plan secures $400m wildfire reinsurance from second Golden Bear Re cat bond

The California FAIR Plan Association has now successfully secured its upsized target of $400 million of multi-year wildfire reinsurance protection through its second catastrophe bond sponsorship, with the Golden Bear Re Ltd. (Series 2026-2) cat bond now priced, Artemis can report.

The California FAIR Plan Association ventured back to the catastrophe bond market for its second sponsorship at the start of this month, with an initial target to secure $200 million of multi-year wildfire reinsurance protection from the capital markets.

As the California FAIR Plan looks to build-out its reinsurance tower it had returned to the capital market quickly after its debut catastrophe bond that was issued in December 2025. That first cat bond secured the largest pure wildfire risk issuance ever, the $750 million Golden Bear Re Ltd. (Series 2026-1).

The FAIR Plan showed it has an appetite to lock-in more multi-year protection, demonstrating in the process that it finds cat bond market pricing attractive, initially with the new Golden Bear Re 2026-2 cat bond target being raised 75% to an upsized $350 million, while the price guidance was lowered and narrowed towards the bottom of the initial range.

As we reported in our second update on this deal, the target size was increased again, with the California FAIR Plan then aiming to close this new Golden Bear Re 2026-2 cat bond at double the initial target size, with a $400 million issuance anticipated and the price guidance been reduced again.

Now, we’ve learned that the Golden Bear Re Series 2026-2 catastrophe bond notes have been successfully priced to secure the California FAIR Plan its 100% upsized target of $400 million of protection, while the pricing was finalised at a level below the initial guidance.

As a result, with all details now finalised, Golden Bear Re Ltd. will issue a single $400 million tranche of Series 2026-2 Class A notes, that will protect the California FAIR Plan against California wildfire losses on an indemnity trigger and per-occurrence basis across a three year term to the end of February 2029.

The Series 2026-2 Class A notes come with an initial expected loss of 2.65% and were first offered to investors with spread price guidance in a range from 9.75% to 10.75%, which later fell to between 9.75% and 10% and were then updated again to a lower still range of 9.5% to 9.75%.

We’re now told that the $400 million Golden Bear Re Series 2026-2 Class A catastrophe bond notes have been priced to pay investors an initial risk interest spread of 9.5%, so at the bottom of the twice reduced range.

As we reported in our earlier articles, the previous issuance of $750 million Golden Bear Re 2026-1 notes had an initial expected loss of 2.24% and priced to pay investors an initial risk interest spread of 9.75%, so paid investors a multiple-at-market of 4.35 times the EL.

Based on the now finalised spread pricing, these new 2026-2 notes will come with a multiple-at-market of just 3.59 times the initial expected loss, indicating strong execution for the California FAIR Plan’s second venture into the cat bond market.

It offers another clear reflection of the tight spread environment in the cat bond market, but we also suspect reflects rising cat bond fund and investor confidence and knowledge of the California FAIR Plan as a cat bond sponsor.

It means that, once this new issuance settles later this week, the California FAIR Plan will benefit from $1.15 billion of wildfire reinsurance on a multi-year basis from the catastrophe bond market, a significant addition to its reinsurance tower for the coming years.

This is the first pure wildfire risk deal of 2026, following on from 2025 when we saw the most wildfire transactions we’d ever recorded in our Deal Directory.

Wildfire risk remains a relatively small component of the cat bond market in its purest form, of cat bonds solely exposed to the peril Artemis data shows, but this second issuance for the FAIR Plan will grow that further and as a result the wildfire peril continues to offer more diversification opportunities for investors and cat bond funds.

You can read all about this new Golden Bear Re Ltd. (Series 2026-2) catastrophe bond and view details on almost every other cat bond ever issued in our extensive Artemis Deal Directory.