Catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities news

Today’s abundant reinsurance and insurance-linked securities capital levels presents the sector with a window of opportunity to diversify its capital stack and secure longer-duration solutions, before the market inevitably shifts again, Jarad Madea, CEO of Howden Capital Markets & Advisory told us in an interview.

At the S&P Global Ratings briefing in Monte Carlo at the RVS, Maren Josefs, Credit Analyst at the company explained that the big stories in insurance-linked securities has been catastrophe bonds and casualty sidecars this year, but she cautioned the market to remember that investors still don’t like surprises.

Swiss Re is seeing broader and more engaged interest in catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities from institutional investors, with this increasing even faster than the substantial issuance growth seen in recent years, according to Mariagiovanna Guatteri, CIO, Swiss Re Insurance-Linked Strategies Inc.

Catastrophe bond fund structured in the UCITS investment format delivered their strongest month of performance year-to-date through the August days of record, averaging 1.24% for the period, while the 12-month rolling return average across the Plenum CAT Bond UCITS Fund Indices slipped a little further to 9.82%.

While broader insurance and reinsurance market dynamics mean we haven’t seen any 144A cyber catastrophe bonds in 2026 so far, there is no shortage of investor appetite for cyber insurance-linked securities (ILS), and industry-loss warranty (ILW) transactions are still being seen, according to Brittany Baker, VP of Solution Consulting, CyberCube.

As both catastrophe bonds and private reinsurance continue to gain momentum, institutional investors should not be viewing the two as competing asset classes, as their respective strengths are complementary to each other, which ultimately allows investors to build more diversified catastrophe risk portfolios, LGT ILS Partners’ Christian Bruns told Artemis in an interview.

Speaking at global reinsurer SCOR’s briefing at RVS 2026 in Monte Carlo, Thierry Léger, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) said that the reinsurer sees third-party capital as an attractive source of capital for the firm, and sees no future changes regarding its strategy for managing it.

An influx of capital inflows and low catastrophe losses are likely to pressure rates at the upcoming January renewals, which leads Twelve Securis’ Cahal Doris to note that structural integrity will remain a key focus for the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market during the key season.

The global reinsurance sector is expected to face more challenging market conditions in 2027, with price softening expected to continue while pressure on terms and conditions rises, as the market exhibits typical cyclical characteristics, all of which makes discipline key to the ability to deliver returns, S&P Global Ratings has said.

At the Monte Carlo Rendez-vous today, Brian Schneider, Global Head of Reinsurance Ratings at Fitch Ratings seemed more bullish on the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market continuing its recent pace of growth, while traditional reinsurance capital is only forecast for “slight” growth this year.