Yardstick Re flood cat bond underpins BarmeniaGothaer’s resilience to extreme events: CFO

For German insurance group BarmeniaGothaer the recent completion of its debut catastrophe bond sponsorship underpins its resilience to extreme events, while also offering useful single peril flood reinsurance coverage, CFO Harald Epple has said about the €100 million Yardstick Re DAC (Series 2026-1) issuance.

The ceding entity to the recently settled Yardstick Re catastrophe bond is Gothaer Allgemeine Versicherungs AG (Gothaer), a core non-life P&C insurer and part of the BarmeniaGothaer group of companies.

Having priced more than a week ago, as we reported at the time, the cat bond issuance has now settled and the Yardstick Re notes will provide BarmeniaGothaer’s insurer with €100 million of reinsurance limit to cover flood events in Germany over a four year term on an indemnity trigger and per-occurrence basis.

This offering was first marketed to cat bond investors with price guidance for a risk interest spread of 2%, which was then later reduced to a range of 1.95% to 2% and eventually priced at the lower-end of a 1.95% spread.

Commenting on the catastrophe bond sponsorship, BarmeniaGothaer highlighted that extreme weather are one of the biggest business risks for insurers in Germany.

Natural hazard losses reached EUR 5.7 billion in 2024 and EUR 2.6 billion in 2025 for the German insurance market.

“Against this background, BarmeniaGothaer is opening up the capital market as an additional source of hedging for the first time: With the issuance of the Cat Bond “Yardstick Re”, the company supplements classic reinsurance solutions specifically with capital market-based instruments,” the insurance group explained.

The company sees accessing the capital markets for reinsurance protection as a strategic response to the rising risks that are faced.

Harald Epple, CFO of BarmeniaGothaer explained, “With Yardstick Re, we are expanding our range of risk transfer tools specifically to provide capital market-based solutions.

“This transaction creates particular value by the fact that the flood risk alone is covered. In addition, access to the capital market provides us with additional capacity, offers us an alternative to traditional reinsurance markets and underpins our resilience to extreme events.”

The company noted that the Yardstick Re catastrophe bond “fits seamlessly into the existing traditional reinsurance coverage and thus fulfills all the objectives associated with this risk transfer.”

While, encouragingly BarmeniaGothaer also highlighted that the special purpose vehicle, an Ireland domciled designated activity company Yardstick Re DAC, is “designed for long-term use,” which suggests the insurer may look to build on the cat bond program over time.

The insurer also noted that this is a rare investment grade rated catastrophe bond, rated by Moody’s Ratings, which effectively “opens up a wide circle of institutional investors.”

BarmeniaGothaer said the cat bond is a strategic expansion of capital markets solutions for the insurer.

“With “Yardstick Re”, BarmeniaGothaer reacts to the increasing importance of heavy rain and flood events and positions itself as an innovative risk expert in composite insurance. Insurance Linked Securities are being established in a targeted manner as a component of a future-oriented risk transfer.

“Access to the capital market creates additional flexibility in a changing market environment, both in terms of increasing natural hazards and regulatory developments. At the same time, it enables the development of long-term scalable capital sources for the protection of natural disasters,” the insurance group summed up.

You can read all about this Yardstick Re DAC (Series 2026-1) transaction and every other catastrophe bond deal in our extensive Artemis Deal Directory.