For the primary time since we’ve been monitoring the disaster bond market, Artemis’ measure for the scale of the market, primarily based on our estimate of catastrophe bond risk capital outstanding, has surpassed the $50 billion mark, as 2025 issuance continues to outpace the heavy maturity schedule.
As of Thursday twenty seventh February 2025, our figure for risk capital outstanding across 144A catastrophe bonds and the private cat bonds we’ve tracked reached an all-time excessive of just about $50.98 billion.
That’s up by virtually $1.5 billion since solely the tip of 2024, regardless of there having been roughly $2.5 billion of maturities already this yr. As new cat bond issuance recorded by Artemis has now reached $4 billion in 2025 already, so has far outpaced this.
Actually, the excellent disaster bond market is now virtually 7% bigger than it was on the finish of the third-quarter of 2024, having grown by by greater than $3.2 billion in measurement, reflecting the notably robust issuance seen over simply the previous couple of months.
It’s necessary to notice that our determine for cat bond market threat capital excellent will differ to others you may see, as we embrace each 144A cat bond (property cat, specialty and different strains, however not together with any mortgage ILS) in addition to numerous non-public cat bond, or cat bond lite offers we’ve sourced particulars on. We additionally don’t at all times learn about early redemptions, or partial repayments, so once more the determine from broker-dealers and ILS managers will seemingly differ.
However, variations apart this new file excessive is especially notable, because it’s the most important Artemis’ determine for the excellent disaster bond market has been in our greater than twenty-eight years of monitoring the sector for our cat bond knowledge set and the primary time it has reached the $50 billion milestone due to the settlement of some bigger cat bond offers up to now week.
You may analyse the growth of the catastrophe bond market over time using our interactive chart:
The excellent disaster bond market, by our measure, is now 13% bigger than on the finish of 2023 and 34% bigger than it stood on the finish of 2022.
Impressively, the cat bond market has now virtually doubled in measurement since 2015, so in lower than a decade.
On the charge of issuance we’re presently seeing, the first-quarter of 2025 is sort of sure to set new data and there may be each probability we see the cat bond market double over a ten yr interval by later this yr.
There are vital maturities to come back although and the cat bond market might want to keep on a record-setting tempo to proceed to develop over the approaching months.
There are an additional virtually $1.9 billion of disaster bonds set to mature earlier than the tip of the first-quarter after which one other virtually $5.9 billion wall of cat bond maturities coming in Q2 2025. Analyse the cat bond maturity schedule using this chart.
Actually, with extra maturities to come back out of the market later at the moment, the cat bond market measurement will shrink considerably though stay above the $50 billion milestone for now.
Going forwards, it appears there may be each probability the market continues to broaden, given what we’ve witnessed in 2025 to this point and the very fact these maturities are going to convey vital ranges of money again to cat bond fund managers and buyers, which might be accessible to be invested into new issuances and certain maintain deal execution enticing for cat bond sponsors.
As demand for reinsurance and retrocession in insurance-linked securities (ILS) kind continues to be excessive, there may be presently no motive to suppose the market can’t proceed to develop over the rest of this yr, with extra data probably set.
As a reminder, you can track catastrophe bond issuance and the pipeline of deals due to settle in this chart.
You can track settled cat bond issuance by month and quarter in this chart (use the important thing of months on the backside to incorporate and exclude any to your evaluation).
The Artemis Deal Directory lists all disaster bond and associated transactions accomplished for the reason that market was shaped within the late 1990’s. The listing additionally lists the cat bonds ready to settle, that are highlighted in inexperienced on the prime of the listing.
Download our free quarterly catastrophe bond market reports.
We observe catastrophe bond and related ILS issuance data, essentially the most prolific sponsors in the market, most lively structuring and bookrunning banks and brokers, which risk modellers feature in cat bonds most frequently, plus a lot more.
Find all of our charts and data here, or through the Artemis Dashboard which offers a helpful one-page view of cat bond market metrics.
All of those charts and visualisations are up to date as quickly as a brand new cat bond issuance is accomplished, or as older issuances mature.
