UCITS catastrophe bond fund sector surpasses $21bn of assets for first time

Catastrophe bond funds in the UCITS format have now added more than $1.84 billion of assets through 2026 so far, with the sector surpassing the $21 billion milestone for the first time this month.

That equates to nearly 10% growth in the combined assets of the UCITS catastrophe bond fund sector over the course of this year so far.

Recall that, these UCITS catastrophe bond fund strategies expanded at pace through 2025, adding roughly $5.3 billion or 39% across the asset base of the UCITS structured cat bond fund strategies, to reach what we now know to be $19.2 billion as of the end of last year.

While the rate of asset growth in the UCITS cat bond fund sector has slowed a little in 2026, it is still expanding at a fast rate and this even as the amount of maturities and early redemptions of cat bonds seen this year so far has been at its highest level ever seen.

In 2026 so far, UCITS cat bond fund assets reached the $20 billion milestone for the first time ever in February, but then declined slightly to around $19.8 billion by the end of Q1 2026.

The second-quarter has seen UCITS cat bond fund managers attracting more fresh capital, to support the record levels of issuance seen in the market, taking the sector’s combined assets to a new high of over $20.76 billion by the end of Q2.

Expansion of the UCITS cat bond fund sector’s asset base has now continued in July, with data as of last week (where available) showing combined assets under management has now reached almost $21.06 billion.

Analyse UCITS catastrophe bond fund assets under management using these charts (data kindly shared by our partner Plenum Investments AG, a specialist insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund manager).

As the catastrophe bond market has been growing at pace, so too have the assets of the major cat bond funds. The UCITS strategies are a significant component of global cat bond market risk capital, helping to provide the funding needed to support reinsurance and retrocession securitization deals for the world’s re/insurers and other sponsors of cat bonds.

Based on Artemis’ measure of the outstanding cat bond market, the UCITS cat bond funds combined AUM contributes just over 32% of the market at this stage of July 2026, up slightly from around 31% at the end of the first-quarter.

UCITS cat bond fund assets under management as a group have now grown by 140% since the end of 2022, 92% since the end of 2023 and over the last one and a half years of record cat bond issuance have now added an impressive almost 53% in assets since the start of 2025.

The 10% growth seen so far in 2026 may seem like a slow-down of sorts, but it comes from an already high-base and given cat bond maturities will be fewer through the rest of this year, but issuance is anticipated to continue at a rapid pace, there could be opportunities for the growth rate to accelerate before year-end.

Over the course of 2026 so far the fastest growing UCITS cat bond fund, in dollar terms, is the Leadenhall UCITS ILS Fund strategy managed by Leadenhall Capital Partners, having added an impressive $524 million and now being almost a billion dollars larger than it was a year ago, now sitting at nearly $2.52 billion in size.

The Swiss Re portfolio managed GAM Swiss Re Cat Bond Fund has increased its AUM by almost $409 million, sitting at nearly $1.97 billion of assets at this time.

Fermat Capital Management’s UCITS strategy, the Fermat UCITS Cat Bond Fund, grew by over $366 million to reach $2.9 billion this month.

The Icosa Investments managed Icosa Cat Bond Fund added $278 million to reach $1.143 billion of AUM, while the Plenum Investments strategy the Plenum CAT Bond Dynamic Fund added $138 million and reached a new high of $650 million of AUM.

The two largest UCITS cat bond funds however have both been in soft closes, with the Twelve Securis managed Twelve Cat Bond Fund still the largest in this sector at almost $4.62 billion and only growing very slightly this year, while the Schroders Capital managed Schroder GAIA Cat Bond Fund sat just slightly under $4 billion of AUM and shrank slightly this year. Both of these investment firms are managing investor flows carefully at this time, to right-size their funds to what they see as the market opportunity.

The top-six UCITS catastrophe bond funds all have over a billion dollars of assets under management, but between them command $17.15 billion of AUM, so make up a very meaningful near 82% of the sector’s total assets.

There are now 21 active UCITS cat bond funds in the sector, a number that is expected to increase further with additional launches planned, we understand and have reported (a recent launch here and a planned strategy here).

Analyse UCITS catastrophe bond fund assets under management using our charts here.

You can also analyse UCITS cat bond fund performance, using the Plenum CAT Bond UCITS Fund Indices.