UCITS catastrophe bond funds keep growing, near $21.8bn combined AUM after September

Catastrophe bond funds structured in the UCITS format have now added more than $2.5 billion of assets in 2026 so far, with the sector nearing $21.8 billion of combined assets under management by the end of September 2026.

Even through the hurricane season months when new issuance of catastrophe bonds tends to come to a halt, the retained earnings from coupon returns earned by the UCITS cat bond funds has continued to bolster their assets under management.

Over the course of 2026 so far, the combined AUM of the UCITS catastrophe bond fund sector has increased by an impressive 13.25%.

Through the third-quarter of the year, the UCITS cat bond funds have still grown their combined AUM by almost $1 billion, although the growth has slowed through August and September as the new cat bond issuance pipeline dried up.

As we have reported previously, UCITS catastrophe bond fund strategies expanded at a rapid pace through 2025, adding roughly $5.3 billion or 39% across the asset base of the UCITS structured cat bond fund strategies, to reach $19.2 billion as of the end of last year.

In 2026, growth continued, as UCITS cat bond fund assets reached the $20 billion milestone for the first time ever in February, after which in support of the record levels of cat bond issuance seen in the market, the sector’s combined assets reached a new high of $20.76 billion by June 30th and have now grown by a further billion dollars to reach $21.76 billion as of September 30th 2026.

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).

UCITS cat bond funds remains a significant component of global cat bond market risk capital, delivering a meaningful proportion of the funding required to support transactions that securitize reinsurance and retrocessional risks for the world’s re/insurers and other sponsors of cat bonds, effectively transferring those risks to the capital markets.

Based on Artemis’ measure of the outstanding cat bond market, the combined AUM of UCITS cat bond funds contributes around 33% of the market risk capital outstanding at this time, which is up slightly from around 32% at the end of the second-quarter of 2026.

As a segment of this market, UCITS cat bond fund assets under management have now increased by 148% since the end of 2022, 99% since the end of 2023 and over the last one and a three-quarter years of record cat bond issuance have now added an impressive almost 58% in assets since the start of 2025.

The just over 13% growth seen through the first nine months of 2026 may seem like a slow-down, but it comes from an already very high-base. There was also a significant maturity load to deal with and some unexpected at the time early redemptions.

But, given cat bond maturities are set to be fewer through the final quarter of this year, while sources say issuance is anticipated to continue at a brisk pace, there may be further opportunities for UCITS cat bond funds to grow before the end of 2026.

As of September 30th, the fastest growing UCITS cat bond fund, in dollar terms, was the GAM Swiss Re Cat Bond Fund, which has added $560 million of AUM this year, to reach almost $2.12 billion in size.

Other cat bond funds that have added significant AUM in 2026 so far are the Fermat UCITS Cat Bond Fund at $550 million and the Leadenhall UCITS ILS Fund strategy at $457 million. After that, the Icosa Cat Bond Fund added $321 million, the Twelve Cat Bond Fund $184 million and the Plenum CAT Bond Dynamic Fund $181 million.

The Twelve Cat Bond Fund remains the largest of the UCITS strategies in the sector, with almost $4.74 billion of AUM at September 30th.

The Schroder GAIA Cat Bond Fund is next, at almost $4.16 billion, while the Fermat UCITS Cat Bond Fund now stands at almost $3.09 billion.

As a result, those three largest cat bond funds now make up $11.98 billion of the UCITS cat bond fund sector AUM.

But the top six UCITS cat bond funds, the only ones that all have more than a billion dollars under management each, now account for over $17.7 billion of the sector assets. That is now approaching 82% of the sector’s combined AUM, roughly flat with the end of the prior quarter.

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.