Catastrophe bond news

Tower Hill Insurance Exchange has now successfully priced its second catastrophe bond transaction, securing the 75% upsized target of $175 million in Florida named storm reinsurance protection from the Winston Re Ltd. (Series 2025-1) issuance.

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) has increased the targeted amount of multi-year collateralized California earthquake reinsurance protection it seeks from capital market investors through its new Ursa Re Ltd. (Series 2025-1) issuance, with now up to $375 million of coverage being sought, while the price guidance has been fixed at 7.5%, Artemis has learned.

Coastal property managing general underwriter SageSure has raised the target size for its new Gateway Re Ltd. (Series 2025-1) catastrophe bond issuance, with now between $470 million and as much as $555 million of first and second event US named storm reinsurance protection sought.

Direct-to-consumer insurtech company Kin Insurance is back in the catastrophe bond market to sponsor its third issuance, seeking $200 million or more in Florida named storm protection from this Hestia Re Ltd. (Series 2025-1) transaction.

US insurer Allstate expects its losses from the recent Los Angeles, California wildfires will be around $1.1 billion, pre-tax and net of reinsurance, which has implications for the erosion of aggregate Sanders Re catastrophe bond deductibles and may result in recoveries under its Nationwide excess-of-loss reinsurance tower.

Insurer USAA revealed today that it has received more than 3,500 claims related to the California wildfires, with 86% of claims receiving initial payments of more than $1 billion, with the company projecting that its members’ wildfire losses will reach roughly $1.8 billion.

Speaking during the Everest fourth-quarter earnings call yesterday, CFO Mark Kociancic explained that the reduced size of the firm’s catastrophe bond program has enabled it to retain more of the economics from its natural catastrophe underwriting.

Price adjustments to catastrophe bonds exposed to the California wildfires drove the overall yield of the catastrophe bond market higher in January 2025, to end the month back in double-digit territory, at 10.34% in USD, according to the latest data from Plenum Investments.

The mark-to-market impact to catastrophe bonds from the Los Angeles, California wildfires has risen, as a number of cat bond names saw further mark-downs on  pricing sheets last Friday, while some aggregate cat bonds saw negative movements that had not done so before.

According to Swiss Re Capital Markets, the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market continued the growth trend of recent years throughout 2024, as the last twelve months were marked by a “robust performance” for cat bond investors in the absence of events large enough to have a significant impact on the market.