Delivering clear entry-to-exit for ILS structures essential for investor confidence: Artex’s Faries

While the industry has spent considerable time implementing ways that capital enters ILS vehicles, the mechanism for how it exits has often been treated as an afterthought. Artex Capital Solutions is dedicating effort towards building vehicles that provide a clear entry and a clear exit, with CEO Kathleen Faries emphasising that delivering clarity at the point of exit is essential to providing investors with full-lifecycle confidence.

Earlier this year, Artex Capital Solutions, the insurance-linked securities market service provider and insurance management specialist, partnered with legacy and run-off reinsurance specialist Enstar that introduced structured exit options embedded within Artex’s ILS vehicles.

As we explained at the time, this initiative was designed to solve the trapped capital issue for ILS investors, by providing mechanisms that can deliver greater certainty on exits from ILS investments, while providing liquidity and capital return.

Artemis spoke to Faries at this year’s Rendez-Vous de Septembre in Monte Carlo, who explained how this structure fundamentally changes liquidity expectations for ILS investors. The CEO also outlined whether Artex expects embedded finality to become standard across the market going forwards.

“I think that’s exactly what we’re aspiring to do. We’re looking to build infrastructure and structures that provide both a clear entry and a clear exit. Historically, we’ve relied on commutation language and collateral release provisions, but over time we’ve seen that those mechanisms may not provide the level of certainty some investors are looking for. This gives investors another option and greater confidence around the exit process,” Faries told Artemis.

She further explained: “We want to deliver efficient infrastructure from entry to exit, and the exit component is something Artex has been focused on building for some time.

“We manage many risk transfer vehicles globally including some that we own. The primary brand is Artex Axcell, which allows participants to rent a cell within our structure and access risk transfer efficiently.”

For investors, having Enstar’s exit and finality solutions embedded directly into Artex Capital Solutions managed and facilitated ILS structures is a meaningful step forwards towards making these features available and making trapped capital less of, or no longer a primary hurdle at all in future ILS investment structures they allocate capital to.

Furthermore, Faries also explained how amidst an influx of record-breaking catastrophe bond issuance, including a new record for first-half issuance at nearly $18 billion in H1 2026, how Artex is helping cat bond investors balance their search for yield with strict capital management.

“At Artex, we view ourselves as critical infrastructure for the market. That’s how I think about what we do as a company. Our role is to provide investors with efficient access to risk across the asset class and multiple ways to deploy capital,” the CEO said.

“That includes supporting catastrophe bonds, but also providing access to private transactions   across property cat, casualty, specialty risks, and parametric transactions. Artex has experience and infrastructure to support the full range of structures and lines of business in the market.”

Faries concludes: “Ultimately, Artex supports the market by creating efficient pathways for our risk transfer vehicles, capital to access risk in the way that best aligns with an investor’s objectives.”

Read all of our interviews with ILS market and reinsurance sector professionals here.