The Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP), a large Canadian institutional retirement fund, saw its investment allocation to insurance-linked securities (ILS) rising in value by approximately 9% in 2025, lifting its ILS portfolio to approximately US $1.44 billion.
The now CAD $132 billion pension fund has been allocating to the insurance-linked securities (ILS) asset class, including catastrophe bonds and private reinsurance opportunities, since late 2019.
The Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan’s ILS investments are understood to feature allocations to dedicated ILS manager strategies, as well as some direct reinsurance arrangements.
Overall, the HOOPP pension fund delivered a 7.7% net return in 2025 and generated net investment income of CAD $9.7 billion, which helped to lift its AUM to the new CAD $132 billion high.
The pension has always touted the value of diversification within its portfolio, with ILS sitting in the capital market alternatives and low correlation segment of its portfolio, as well as investing locally in Canada and is one of the large institutional investors to embrace the total portfolio approach from the start of this year.
In 2025, it appears growth of HOOPP’s ILS allocations has slowed, given the only 9% rise to US $1.44 billion over the last year.
We’ve tracked the growth of HOOPP’s ILS and cat bond investments over time. At the end of 2021 they amounted to CAD $721 million (approx. US $575m), which then increased to CAD $973 million (approx. US $718.7m) at the end of 2022, then CAD $1.366 billion (US $1bn) at the end of 2023 and in the prior year’s reporting had increased 39% to CAD $1.898 billion (US $1.32bn) by Dec 31st 2024.
As of December 31st 2025, HOOPP’s valuation for its ILS investments was CAD $1.97 billion, so up by 9% in the year and at the reporting date roughly US $1.44 billion, which still represents a new high for the pension fund’s activities in the ILS market despite the slower growth in assets.
The asset value of HOOPP’s cat bond and ILS allocation has increased at a faster rate than the overall pension fund again in 2025, as HOOPP’s overall AUM grew by 7.3% from CAD $123 billion to CAD $132 billion last year.
Which suggests the returns delivered by the ILS portfolio again outpaced the average returns delivered by the pension fund, as HOOPP reported a 7.7% net return for 2025.
Given generally strong performance across catastrophe bonds and private ILS or reinsurance fund strategies in 2025, it’s highly likely the ILS allocation performed well for HOOPP again in the last year.
As a share of the pension plan’s total assets, the ILS investments now make up 1.49% as of Dec 31st 2025, down slightly from 1.54% of the fund as of the end of 2024.
HOOPP has made one additional disclosure in its latest reporting, that it held CAD $482 million in catastrophe bonds at December 31st 2025, which was down from CAD $512 million as of the end of the prior year. In US dollar terms that is only very slightly down year-on-year.
It’s not completely clear if this is direct cat bond investments, or a cat bond fund allocation. We can’t be certain, but think it may be the former by the way HOOPP explains how they fit in fixed income exposure.
Either way, it shows that at a minimum 25% of the HOOPP’s ILS allocation was made up of catastrophe bonds, at the end of 2025.
The Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP) began allocating to insurance-linked securities (ILS) in late 2019, largely via insurance-linked funds, as well as some direct investments into other reinsurance-related securities.
The steady growth in ILS allocation size over time has clearly benefited the pension fund, as a welcome diversifier, especially over the last three years of very strong returns and through periods of financial market volatility.
2025 perhaps suggests the pension plan has right-sized its ILS allocation for the moment, given the growth was not especially significant when you consider the returns likely generated by the ILS portfolio component last year.
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