Catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities news

Catastrophe bond maturities are a significant source of liquidity and cash for the market, which is typically reinvested into new cat bond issues and as such the schedule of upcoming cat bond maturities is a key indicator for sponsors and broker-dealers, as well as cat bond investment fund managers.

A recent article in the mainstream financial press has caused some consternation among catastrophe bond fund managers and end-investors allocating to those strategies, as while it correctly highlighted that cat bond fund returns are down year-on-year in 2024, it failed to discuss the very good reason why 2023’s elevated returns were unlikely to be repeated.

The surge in catastrophe bond market issuance and resulting insurance-linked securities (ILS) market growth over the last year, came at the right time for the insurance and reinsurance market, meeting their needs for risk transfer, according to Richard Pennay of Aon Securities.

Typhoon Shanshan struck Japan’s southern island of Kyushu yesterday and while it is being called one of the strongest storms to hit the country in decades, the ultimate impact to reinsurance markets is expected to be minimal, while catastrophe bonds and other insurance-linked securities (ILS) are expected to be largely or completely unaffected.

Artemis has partnered with Wilmington Trust to host a live insurance-linked securities (ILS) focused webinar on October 31st 2024, in which our industry expert speakers will explore the state of the catastrophe bond and broader ILS market, as well as the outlook for 2025.

Back on July 10th we reported on a new $45.5 million Randolph Re (Series 2024-1) private catastrophe bond that appeared to be a renewal of a wildfire transaction for Mercury Insurance and for the first time Aon had used its Guernsey based protected cell company White Rock Insurance Company PCC Limited for the issuance.

On average, catastrophe bond loss multiples are not expected to fall back much further, as the capacity providers in the reinsurance market, including insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund managers and investors, are still motivated to hold onto the gains recently made, according to AM Best.

Investing into an asset class like reinsurance whose performance is not influenced by movements in global share prices is seen as a “powerful way to build more robust, resilient portfolios” by MLC Asset Management’s Gareth Abley, who also disclosed that the MLC catastrophe bond and ILS portfolio has averaged an impressive cash +5% return over […]

Unless there are “substantial” losses to insurance-linked securities (ILS) from catastrophe events in the second-half of 2024, Fitch Ratings said it expects “continued strong supply growth in the alternative reinsurance capital market into 2025.”

The recent and first ever ‘megaquake’ warning issued by authorities in Japan has heightened the perception of the peril’s risk and even though the warning was eventually lifted, it is seen as a factor that could be supportive of reinsurance pricing for that country, by analysts at J.P. Morgan.