While White Mountains elected not to invest capital into the Outrigger Re collateralized reinsurance sidecar, which supports its P&C insurance and reinsurance subsidiary Ark, for the 2026 underwriting year, the vehicle continues to serve as a major driver of cash flow, returning substantial capital to the firm throughout 2026 so far.
As a reminder, Ark renewed its Outrigger Re sidecar for the 2026 underwriting year in late 2025, with the level of capital dropping to $70 million, as Ark adopted a new strategy of using more traditional quota share reinsurance capacity.
While White Mountains did not invest in the sidecar for the 2026 underwriting year, the firm’s latest quarterly results suggest that Outrigger Re still delivered a lot of capital distributions back to it.
In the first six months of 2026, White Mountains received $145 million of distributions from WM Outrigger Re, primarily a return of capital related to its non-renewal for the 2026 underwriting year, followed by another $77 million on July 23rd, 2026.
These combined outflows represent the firm effectively recovering the value of its prior year positions in the sidecar following its decision not to invest in the vehicle for the 2026 underwriting year, while the sum likely also includes some profits generated from the sidecar as well.
As a reminder, White Mountains invested $205 million in the 2023 sidecar launch, $130 million in the 2024 vintage Outrigger Re sidecar and $150 million in the sidecar for the 2025 underwriting year.
Ark also reported that as of July 31st, 2026, investments of $46 million were held in the collateral trust account to fund WM Outrigger Re’s remaining obligations under the reinsurance agreements it has with GAIL for both the 2024 and 2025 underwriting years.
As well as this, Ark also reported that WM Outrigger Re has loss and LAE reserves outstanding of $28 million as of June 30th, 2026.
For the third-party investors backing Outrigger Re, it appears that results from both the second quarter and first half of 2026 will have been attractive.
This comes as Ark reports that WM Outrigger Re’s combined ratio was 25% and 40% in Q2 2026 and H1 2026, compared to 44% and 120% in the same respective periods from last year.
“Catastrophe losses were minimal in the second quarter of 2026 and 2025. WM Outrigger Re reported gross written premiums of $0 million and net earned premiums of $1 million in the second quarter of 2026 compared to gross written premiums of $43 million and net earned premiums of $7 million in the second quarter of 2025,” Ark added.
The WM Outrigger Re segment also generated a pre-tax income of $2 million in the second quarter of 2026, a notable decline from the $6 million it recorded in the second quarter of 2025.
Ark reported: “Through June 30, 2026, WM Outrigger Re has generated pre-tax income of $59 million from the 2025 underwriting year, $29 million from the 2024 underwriting year and $76 million from the 2023 underwriting year.”
Some of those figures have slightly risen since the full-year 2025 results, when White Mountains had reported pre-tax income of $55 million attributable to the 2025 underwriting year from the Outrigger Re sidecar investment.
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