The first-half of 2026 saw another record period of issuance in the catastrophe bond market, as the use of cat bonds to source reinsurance protection continues to increase and the investor base appetite for new cat bond investment opportunities grows. Beyond the new issuance high-bar that was set, numerous other records fell in H1.
Having published our new report that analyses second-quarter and first-half 2026 catastrophe bond issuance last week, we wanted to follow-up and highlight some of the market’s impressive achievements from H1.
More sponsors keep embracing the catastrophe bond and this is driving up transaction numbers as well as issuance volumes, which has been keeping the market very busy over the last couple of years.
Market participants have responded admirably to the heavy flow of new cat bond deals in 2026, and the fact execution remains swift and has shown no signs of slowing with the congested pipeline is testament to the hard work and effort of everyone involved in structuring and delivering the cat bond pipeline of deals to investors, from brokers, through modellers, legal experts and other key service providers.
In addition, the professional insurance-linked security (ILS) fund managers, the direct institutional investors and of course the end-investors that ultimately provide the capital to support this increasingly important source of reinsurance limit have kept pace with not just a busy pipeline of deals, but also the highest levels of maturities in the market’s history so far through the first-half of 2026.
The records we detail below are not an exhaustive list, there will be others if you dive deeper into the data underpinning catastrophe bond issuance.
But these are some of the highlights from the first-half of the year, as the catastrophe bond cemented itself an even more core role in global reinsurance and risk transfer.
Below, we detail a number of the first-half cat bond market records set this year grouping them by type.
Catastrophe bond issuance records set in H1 2026:
That beat the previous record for total issuance across all types of cat bonds Artemis tracks of just over $17.56 billion set a year earlier in H1 2025.
Looking at the constituent types of cat bonds issued and more records fell in H1 this year.
Rule 144A catastrophe bond issuance across all peril classes issued in H1 2026 reached almost $17.7 billion. That beat last year’s record of just over $17.4 billion.
For Rule 144A property cat bonds only, issuance of this type of deal reached a new high of almost $17.3 billion in H1 2026, beating last year’s record of almost $16.8 billion.
Analyse total issuance using this chart and break the market down into its constituent transaction types here.
Catastrophe bond market size records set in H1 2026:
Despite a significant volume of maturities in the first-half of this year, issuance of new catastrophe bonds outpaced that yet again.
As a result, including all 144A cat bonds and the private cat bond deals we track in our extensive Artemis Deal Directory, the outstanding catastrophe bond market ended H1 2026 at a record size of almost $65.6 billion.
The June 30th 2026 number is now the largest end-of-quarter size for the catastrophe bond market ever, beating the end of Q1 2026 figure of almost $63.9 billion.
Looking at just 144A and 144A eligible cat bonds, our end of H1 2026 market size reached almost $65.3 billion, again higher than the end of Q1 2026 figure and previous end-of-quarter high of almost $63.6 billion.
Outright growth of the catastrophe bond market continues and market participants are expecting this to continue, especially as the maturity wall now shrinks for the second-half of 2026, before picking up again in 2027.
Analyse the size of the catastrophe bond market over-time using this chart.
Record single month of catastrophe bond issuance:
May 2026 saw a new record for any single month of issuance in the catastrophe bond market’s history set.
Total issuance for May reached almost $6.93 billion this year, which is an impressive roughly $1 billion increase on the previous record, which was May 2025 with almost $5.93 billion.
Analyse catastrophe bond issuance by month and year in this interactive chart.
Record number of first-time cat bond sponsors in H1 2026:
One of the most important records broken in H1 2026 was the number of new or first time sponsors that entered the catastrophe bond market for their first deals.
We counted 12 first-time cat bond sponsors that entered the market for their debut issuances in the first-half of 2026.
This sets a new record from the 11 first-time sponsor entrants seen in H1 2025.
As new sponsors continue to enter the catastrophe bond market at a rising pace, it is helping to keep issuance higher and building out the market’s size as well, given the majority of debut cat bond sponsors end up becoming repeat sponsors in the future.
We track first time cat bond sponsors by the quarter and year of issuance and we also track all sponsors in the outstanding market on our leaderboard, by the amount of cat bonds they have in-force.
Record number of cat bond transactions issued in H1 2026:
Perhaps the record that is most reflective of the capabilities of the growing catastrophe bond market is the number of deals we encounter, which has also been rising over time.
In H1 2026 we saw an incredible 83 new 144A and private cat bond transactions during the six months, which were all analysed and tracked in the Artemis Deal Directory. This beat the previous half-year record of 72 set in 2025.
It’s notable that the 83 cat bonds seen in just half a year is either equal to or more than the number of transactions seen in most full-year’s in the cat bond markets history, except for only 2023, 2024 and 2025.
In fact, full-year 2024 only saw 10 more deals than we’ve seen so far in H1 2026, while 2023 only saw 95 deals in total (2025 was 122). There’s a very strong chance 2026 breaks this record by the end of the year, signalling that the extremely active pace of issuance continues and the market is only getting busier.
Congratulations are due again to all those involved in arranging, executing on and investing in transactions, as the number of deals to arrange and analyse just keeps on rising.
The number of deals coming to market has been rising steadily and you can track that by year in one of our charts here.
Record use of indemnity triggers in cat bonds in H1 2026:
It looks like H1 2026 saw the greatest use of the indemnity trigger in cat bonds issued during this period. Data is more patchy further back in the cat bond market’s history, but 81% of risk capital issued was structured using an indemnity trigger in the first-half, beating 79% in H1 2025.
This continues to reflect the fact a growing number of primary insurance carriers are utilising the catastrophe bond for reinsurance and this is their preferred trigger type. While a number of large deals also came to market from major US nationwide carriers, who again prefer an indemnity trigger to more closely integrate cat bonds into their reinsurance arrangements.
Analyse the mix of triggers used in the current set of outstanding catastrophe bonds here.
Summing up record H1 2026 catastrophe bond market activity:
We hope this list of new catastrophe bond market records helps to drive home just what an impressive period of issuance H1 2026 has been.
There has been no let-up over the last six months and still the market has kept issuance on-track and execution efficient for sponsors. Kudos to everyone involved. There is likely to be a welcome and well-earned break over the peak of the hurricane season as usual, before the cat bond market pipeline and issuance picks up again later in the year.
As we move through the second-half of the year we will keep you updated on all catastrophe bond and related ILS transaction issuance, and we’ll report on the evolving trends in the cat bond, insurance-linked securities (ILS) and collateralized reinsurance market.
Download your copy of the new Q2 and H1 2026 Artemis cat bond market report here.
We will keep you updated on all catastrophe bond and related ILS transaction issuance as we move through 2026, and we’ll report on the evolving trends in the cat bond, insurance-linked securities (ILS) and collateralized reinsurance market.
For full details of second-quarter 2026 cat bond and related ILS issuance and a review of H1, including a breakdown of deal flow by factors such as perils, triggers, expected loss, and pricing, as well as analysis of the issuance trends seen by month and year.
Download your free copy of Artemis’ Q2 and H1 2026 Cat Bond & ILS Market Report here.
For copies of all our catastrophe bond market reports, visit our archive page and download them all.
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