What volume of catastrophe bonds do you think will be issued in 2013?

Every year in January we ask our readers for their thoughts as to what volume of catastrophe bonds and similarly structured insurance-linked security transactions they believe will be issued over the coming year. Once again in 2012 our audience guessed the correct volume, with 30% of respondents saying they thought between $6 billion and $8 billion of cat bonds and ILS would be issued. According to our Deal Directory data the actual volume of cat bonds and ILS issued in 2012 was $6.339 billion.

This is the third year in a row that our audience have guessed correctly, however 2012 saw opinion change as we moved through the year and the next highest guess with 26% of respondents saying $4 billion to $6 billion. Much closer than we’d expected given that almost every industry observer started 2012 saying they expected more than $6 billion of issuance.

With 2012 reaching the second highest level for annual issuance on record and market conditions said to be conducive to issuance how do you think 2013 will fare? Will catastrophe bond pricing continue to converge with traditional reinsurance cover meaning cat bonds and ILS become an even more viable option for cedents stimulating further growth of the market? With 2013 ahead of us and no catastrophe bonds currently being marketed, but a pipeline which we’re told is looking healthy for Q1, how high do you think cat bond and ILS issuance could go this year?

Tell us what you think in the poll below. The poll will also remain accessible in the right hand sidebar of the Artemis news blog throughout the year so you can see how the vote progresses.

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Here are the results of last years poll which saw our readers correctly guess that 2012 would see between $6 billion and $8 billion worth of cat bond and ILS issuance. The actual total was $6.339 billion and you can read about all of the cat bond and ILS deals issued in 2012 here.

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Here are the results of our 2011 poll which shows our readers correctly predicting that there were between $4 to $6 billion of cat bonds issued. The voting was much closer for 2011 and clearly shows that many were expecting a greater volume of issuance, this was particularly evident at the start of the year. All of the cat bonds and ILS deals that we covered on Artemis during 2011 are listed here.

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As ever, you can view structural details and information on every catastrophe bond and insurance-linked security (ILS) transaction that we have covered on Artemis (269 deals going back to 1996 at the latest count) in our Deal Directory.

Note: The total volume issued always varies between sources and publications as some include life ILS deals (as we do) and others include or exclude private cat bonds (we include where we have the information).