Catastrophe bond & related ILS issuance nears $6bn already in 2021

Despite still being less than four months through the year, issuance of new catastrophe bonds and other related insurance-linked securities (ILS) we track here at Artemis is already approaching $6 billion in 2021.

Issuance of catastrophe bonds has continued apace since the end of last year, with now almost $3.6 billion of new 144A property cat bonds successfully brought to market and issued in 2021 year-to-date.

2021 has also seen $350 million of catastrophe bonds exposed to other perils, in this case financial guarantee and health insurance risks, as well as over $217 million of private catastrophe bonds (or cat bond lites), plus nearly $1.8 billion of mortgage insurance-linked securities (ILS).

At nearly $6 billion, so far in 2021 issuance of property cat bonds and the other related ILS issuances we track for the Artemis Deal Directory is actually running ahead of last year.

Analyse cat bond and ILS issuance data using our interactive charts.

However, when you drill down into issuance data, by today’s date in 2020, while overall issuance we’d tracked was slightly lower at $5.78 billion, issuance of property cat bonds was running ahead of 2021.

By April 19th 2020 issuance of new 144A property cat bonds was at just slightly over $4 billion, so just over $400 million ahead of where we are in 2021.

Issuance of cat bonds covering other lines of business was also higher at $661 million by this time of the year.

Cat bond lite, or private cat bond issuance was much lower though, at $112 million, while issuance of mortgage insurance-linked securities (ILW) was also far lower at $985 million.

So there is a different mix of transactions coming to market so far in 2021, but while pure 144A property cat bond issuance is currently trailing 2020, we expect that to pick up over the coming weeks and there are already at least $575 million in the market from three new deals, all with the potential to upsize as well.

Stay tuned to Artemis for news of every catastrophe bond and related ILS transaction that comes to market, as well as other structures including reinsurance sidecars.

You can view information on every catastrophe bond issued so far in 2020 and all prior years, totalling over 700 issues, in the Artemis Deal Directory.

Keep up-to-date with the make-up of the catastrophe bond and ILS market using the Artemis Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Dashboard, designed to be a simple and effective tool providing key data and statistics on every transaction (there are 700+) contained in our catastrophe bond & ILS Deal Directory.

Analyse the current breakdown of the market in our range of charts, allowing you to view key statistics on the cat bond market.

Source: https://www.artemis.bm/news/catastrophe-bond-related-ils-issuance-nears-6bn-already-in-2021/