Catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities news

Speaking during a recent webinar, Dirk Schmelzer, Senior Portfolio Manager for ILS at Plenum Investments AG, outlined that while the organisation expects another decrease in catastrophe bond risk spreads of around 10–15%, the market remains very healthy and is expected to expand further in both size and the range of risks transferred to the cat […]

Hurricane Melissa is only estimated to have caused insured losses in a range from US $1 billion to US $2.5 billion in Jamaica, according to catastrophe modeller Cotality, with the total expected pegged at US $1.5 billion, while the economic impacts are far higher demonstrating the protection gap.

With the catastrophe bond market pipeline growing for the fourth-quarter, Artemis is on course to track its first $20 billion year of issuance in 2025, as our extensive and long-standing data set of Rule 144A and private cat bond transactions now has that milestone in sight.

Gallagher Securities, the insurance-linked securities (ILS) and capital markets broker-dealer division of reinsurance broker Gallagher Re, has added new structuring expertise with the hire of Caroline Cassis who joins from Swiss Re where most recently she worked in cat bond and ILS structuring.

The price guidance has been reduced a second time for the debut Meadows Ltd. (Series 2025-1) catastrophe bond for One William Street Capital Management, L.P., while the deal is still targeted to secure a slightly upsized $135 million in US named storm retrocessional reinsurance protection for the investment manager, Artemis has learned.

At a meeting of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) Board today, the recently proposed new weighting methodology for a blending of catastrophe risk models to derive the 1-in-50 year PML was approved.

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) has returned to the catastrophe bond market to sponsor its third issuance this year and with an initial target to secure $600 million in fully-collateralized earthquake reinsurance from this Ursa Re II Ltd. (Series 2025-2) issuance it could become one of its largest cat bonds ever.

The overall yield of the catastrophe bond market declined to 8.81% as of October 31st 2025, falling back to levels last seen in June 2022, while the insurance risk spread, or discount margin, has now declined to its lowest point since November 2019, the latest data from Plenum Investments shows.

Having made its insurance-linked securities (ILS) grant scheme more restrictive back in 2023, to only offer the grant to catastrophe bonds or ILS covering regional risks from Asia Pacific, Singapore is reversing that move and expanding the ILS grant offering once again to cover cat bond risks from other locations around the globe, it appears.

As Jamaica awaits an official determination on a potential $150 million payout from its IBRD CAR Jamaica 2024 parametric catastrophe bond from Hurricane Melissa, ratings agency Fitch has said that it does not expect to see any adverse reaction from the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market as a result of the payout.