GeoVera insurers target $350m Veraison Re 2026-1 US earthquake catastrophe bond

GeoVera Nova insurance entities are seeking $350 million or more in US earthquake reinsurance protection from a new Veraison Re Ltd. (Series 2026-1) catastrophe bond, Artemis has learned.

This will be the fourth catastrophe bond in the Veraison Re series of deals, one having been issued around the beginning of the last three years.

The first three Veraison Re cat bonds also all sought US earthquake catastrophe reinsurance for GeoVera insurance entities, although at the time that was under GeoVera Insurance Holdings.

Earlier this year, SageSure invested in GeoVera Nova Holdings, Inc., with that entity now overseeing the three named ceding companies to this fourth Veraison Re catastrophe bond.

A $150 million Veraison Re Ltd. (Series 2023-1) cat bond is scheduled to mature at the start of March 2026, so this new deal looks to both renew and extend that US earthquake reinsurance protection for GeoVera.

There are also $175 million Veraison Re Ltd. (Series 2024-1) and $450 million Veraison Re Ltd. (Series 2025-1) catastrophe bonds still in-force to protect the GeoVera underwriting entities.

You can find details of all the Veraison Re catastrophe bonds in our extensive Deal Directory.

Bermuda licensed special purpose insurer (SPI) Veraison Re Ltd. is aiming to issue two tranches of Series 2026-1 catastrophe bond notes.

These notes will be sold to cat bond investors and the proceeds used to collateralize reinsurance agreements between the SPI and GeoVera entities.

These reinsurance agreements will provide a roughly three-year source of US earthquake reinsurance protection from the capital markets starting from March 1st, with redemption of the notes scheduled for March 8th 2029.

We are told the Veraison Re 2026-1 cat bond will protect GeoVera’s insurance underwriting entities, GeoVera Insurance, GeoVera Specialty Insurance Services, and Coastal Select, the same as the previous year’s deal.

The earthquake reinsurance protection from this Veraison Re 2026-1 catastrophe bond will protect these insurers on an indemnity trigger and per-occurrence basis, we understand.

An initially $200 million tranche of Series 2026-1 Class A notes will cover a share of GeoVera’s losses from an attachment point of $730 million to exhaustion at $1.13 billion, sources said.

Which gives the Class A notes an initial attachment probability of 0.9%, an initial expected loss of 0.75% and these notes are being offered with price guidance for an initial risk interest spread in a range from 2.75% to 3.25%.

An initially $150 million tranche of Class B notes would cover a share of losses from attachment at $550 million to exhaustion at $700 million, so sit below and are riskier than the A’s.

The Class B notes have an initial attachment probability of 2.87%, an initial expected loss of 2.56% and these notes are being offered with price guidance in a range from 4.25% to 4.75%, we are told.

For comparison, last year’s Veraison Re Series 2025-1 cat bond had a Class A tranche of notes with an initial expected loss of 1.43% that paid an initial spread of 3.5%, while a Class B tranche had an initial expected loss of 2.57% and paid a risk interest spread of 5%.

Clearly, the pricing is lower for this 2026-1 cat bond issuance from Veraison Re, but that is no surprise given the softening of reinsurance rates at the renewals and catastrophe  bond pricing over the last few months.

You can read all about this Veraison Re Ltd. (Series 2026-1) in the extensive Artemis Deal Directory that includes details on almost every cat bond ever issued.