CalPERS ILS commitments show room to grow investments in reinsurance and cat bonds

CalPERS, the largest public pension fund in the United States, had previously disclosed investments in catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund strategies valued at $1.451 billion at the end of 2025, but new documents seen by Artemis show that the giant investor had further room to grow in the asset class.

Allocation and increased funding commitments made in the final quarter of last year suggest that the pension fund had room to increase its ILS investments to as much as $1.62 billion, although at this stage no portfolio disclosure has been made since the end of December so it’s not immediately clear if CalPERS has made the additional yet.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS, is among the largest institutional investors in the world with total assets under management of around $600 billion reported at the end of last year.

Back in October 2025 we had reported that CalPERS was set to make its first catastrophe bond allocation and it later became known that the pension fund had also made reinsurance related ILS fund investments in 2025.

As we reported in March 2026, CalPERS had made allocations during calendar year 2025 with specialist insurance-linked securities investment managers Tangency Capital, Integral ILS and Swiss Re Insurance-Linked Investment Advisors Corporation (SRILIAC).

Disclosures made for the end of last year showed that CalPERS ILS investments were valued at $1.451 billion as of December 31st 2025, as it built up and made good on its allocation commitments to these managers.

The Bear Island QS Fund Ltd., a quota share reinsurance focused investment fund managed by specialist manager Tangency Capital was reported to have reached a valuation of almost $720 million as of the end of 2025, as CalPERS had increased its investment into that strategy throughout the year.

A second investment was made to the CB Eiger Bear 2025 Fund last year, a catastrophe bond focused investment fund strategy managed by Swiss Re’s ILS investment arm SRILIAC, or Swiss Re Insurance-Linked Investment Advisors Corporation, which was valued at almost $331 million as of December 31st 2025.

The third investment CalPERS has made to the ILS asset class is to the Arctos Cat Island Fund Ltd., which is a collateralized reinsurance focused investment, so private ILS opportunities, managed by specialist investment firm Integral ILS and this was reported at a $400 million valuation as of the end of last year.

All of which took CalPERS to the $1.451 billion of investments in the cat bond and ILS asset class as of the end of last year.

But fresh documents seen by Artemis show that the pensions commitments available to these ILS strategies were higher or increased, suggesting the ability to grow further in the asset class.

Initially, $310 million was committed to both the Bear Island QS Fund Ltd. managed by Tangency Capital and the CB Eiger Bear 2025 Fund managed by Swiss Re’s SRILIAC.

Then CalPERS made its commitment to the Arctos Cat Island Fund managed by Integral ILS in December, which we now know had a $500 million limit placed on it at the time.

That immediately suggests CalPERS had an additional $100 million it could allocate to the Integral ILS strategy. With that investment having been valued at $400 million at the end of 2025. It’s possible the additional could have been allocated by now, although we cannot confirm with no new full portfolio disclosure available yet.

In addition, in November 2025, CalPERS allocated $500 million in increased funding to what it terms “ILS Opportunistic Strategies”, which we believe could be a catch-all name for the ILS funds, rather than a new strategy.

As the Tangency Capital quota share strategy, the Bear Island QS Fund, ended 2025 at a much larger size than the initial commitment (remember the initial commitment was only $310 million, but by December 31st this investment was at almost $720 million), it seems some of this November additional funding commitment may have flowed there.

But, the total commitments and increased funding reported to-date amounts to $1.62 billion, while the ILS investments were only valued at $1.451 billion at the end of 2025, which shows the room to grow in the ILS asset class if CalPERS wanted to, $100 million of which was specifically directed to the Integral ILS managed fund.

Later in the year when additional disclosures are made by CalPERS we may get greater visibility of whether the giant pension investor has made good on the additional allocation headroom it had available, to increase its ILS investments further.

If it has allocated the full amount, then the valuation of all the ILS fund investments held by CalPERS would be expected to be higher than the $1.62 billion of initial allocation commitments and increased funding reported, given accumulated returns will have grown the net asset value of each investment further by now.

With three distinct access points into the ILS asset class, across quota share reinsurance investments, catastrophe bond investments and private ILS investments (which we suspect are more excess-of-loss reinsurance focused), CalPERS has developed a platform for accessing returns from the asset class that will have further room to grow, if the pension chooses.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) is just one of the numerous pension fund and major ILS investors we track in our directories here.