The ILS & alternative reinsurance market may be bigger than you think

Just how much capital is there in the insurance-linked securities, alternative reinsurance capital and associated markets? Estimates tend to range from $40 billion to $50 billion, but a feature we’re launching today suggests it is higher than that.

Note: Slight update to total AuM due to some double counting, now rectified.

Today we’re launching a new directory of insurance-linked securities investment managers. We wanted to create a list of managers in the insurance or reinsurance linked investment space and give them a home on Artemis where they can detail their profile and strategies.

How much information each manager has contributed was down to them to decide, some have provided a significant amount of detail on their underlying ILS investment strategies, others were only happy to provide basic information. But that’s okay with us, as this directory and listing should be taken as a work in progress, something which will evolve over time based on the requests of ILS managers with more information to share.

Back to the size of the market. With 38 ILS investment managers included it provides a good starting point for looking at the actual size of the ILS market and how much alternative reinsurance capital is under management in the sector right now. The 38 ILS investment managers included in Artemis’ list have assets under management totaling $47.61 billion, not far from the $50 billion mark.

Now, we know the AuM of the full list is really even closer to $50 billion, but a number of managers have declined to share their AuM, either due to being start-ups or because they do not disclose that information to anyone. However we understand that between them they command sufficient assets to take our listing extremely close to $50 billion. We also have some more ILS managers to add who will also increase the total AuM of the list.

So what does this say for the size of the ILS and collateralized reinsurance (or alternative capital) market? Well it’s certainly much larger than $50 billion.

Our listing does not include any direct pension fund or fixed income investors (at the moment, we may add some at a later date) who we believe to control as much as $5 billion, or perhaps even greater, of additional capital. The listing also does not include a number of ILS funds or sidecar structures which are internally operated at banks, insurers or reinsurers, which again could add a number of billion dollars between them. This means that the actual size of the ILS and alternative reinsurance capital market is very likely to be over $55 billion, possibly heading towards $60 billion (maybe even greater) already.

Of course, numbers and statistics vary among observers and those reporting on the market. For example our listing does include some internal capital, so it cannot be considered 100% third-party sourced. It also features an element of insurance debt, due to the broadening of certain ILS managers strategies to include this.

We’re not trying to be a one-stop shop for ILS or alternative capital estimates, rather our new listing is a platform for ILS and insurance linked investment managers to collate and publish their relevant information, providing a resource for those interested in or researching the ILS market.

Our new listing will evolve over time. We intend to add more information on managers and their underlying fund strategies as it becomes available to us. We will keep the assets under management figure as up to date as is possible, although we will rely on the ILS managers to assist us with this.

We hope you enjoy this new resource and find it useful. Visit and bookmark the new Artemis Insurance Linked Securities Investment Managers & Funds Directory.

We’d like to thank the included ILS investment managers for their assistance with the creation of this directory. If you require any changes, or if we’ve missed you out and you would like to be included, please contact us. We’re also happy to hear any feedback or suggestions for additions to the list.