Cat bond news

QBE Insurance Group, the Australia headquartered global insurance and reinsurance company, is back in the catastrophe bond market for the first time since 2013, with a target to secure $250 million or more in retrocession from a Bridge Street Re Ltd. (Series 2025-1) issuance, Artemis has learned.

American Family Mutual Insurance Company (AmFam) has now successfully secured the upsized $275 million in collateralized reinsurance protection it targeted from its latest Four Lakes Re Ltd. (Series 2024-1) cat bond issuance, while the risk spreads were priced at the low-end of reduced guidance.

American Coastal Insurance Company (AmCoastal) has now successfully priced its latest catastrophe bond and has secured the Armor Re II Ltd. (Series 2024-2) issuance at its upsized $200 million target, while the spread was finalised below initial guidance.

Investor optimism remains strong for catastrophe bonds and reinsurance sidecars, but when it comes to collateralized reinsurance that optimism still lags, but institutional investors are positively working to address issues that have made allocating fresh capital more of a challenge in private ILS and collateralized reinsurance, according to Artex.

With catastrophe bond market yields still elevated by historical standards, Dirk Schmelzer, Head Portfolio Manager for ILS / CAT Bonds and a Partner at Plenum Investments AG, believes catastrophe bond funds can deliver high single-digit to low double-digit returns in 2025, on a no loss basis.

US insurance firm Progressive is the latest to seek an upsized execution from its latest venture to the catastrophe bond market, with the firm now seeking a 53% upsized $345 million in multi-peril reinsurance from this Bonanza Re Ltd. (Series 2024-1) issuance.

US primary insurer Allstate has now finalised one of the largest catastrophe bonds in its history, with its new Sanders Re II Ltd. (Series 2024-3) issuance now priced to provide the company $650 million of reinsurance protection, some 86% more than the initial target for this deal.

There is now less than two months to go until our upcoming Artemis ILS NYC 2025 conference in New York on February 7th next year, and today we are delighted to announce four more expert speakers you can hear from on the day, if you register to attend our event.

The Board of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) has today approved a $485 million budget line item for ceded reinsurance and catastrophe bond spend for 2025, which is up 22% on the $397 million spent on protection for 2024.

Having come to market with one unsized tranche of notes, Liberty Mutual’s new Mystic Re IV Ltd. (Series 2025-1) catastrophe bond issuance has now been fully-sized, with a target set for $325 million of indemnity reinsurance on both an occurrence and aggregate basis, Artemis understands.