Real estate catastrophe bond issuance in 2023 has now surpassed the $10 billion mark, according to Artemis, and is thus on track to break the previous annual record of $12.5 billion set in 2021.
Artemis Q2 2023 Catastrophe Bond and Related Insurance-Linked Securities (ILS) Market Report Data show that in the first half of the year, the issuance of real estate catastrophe bonds reached 9.7 billion US dollars, a record for the same period.
But with the completion of two deals in July, the $100 million Purple Re Ltd. (series 2023-2) from Slide Insurance Company and the $250 million Wrigley Re Ltd. (series 2023-1) from Gryphon Mutual (Blackstone’s proprietary real estate arm), such deals have now surpassed $10 billion in issuance.
It was the third time in the market’s history that real estate catastrophe bond issuance totaled more than $10 billion in a single year, following a record $12.5 billion in 2021 and $11 billion in 2020.
The Artemis deal directory shows that 58 cat bond deals have closed so far this year, 46 of which were traditional 144a real estate cat bonds and the rest were private placement deals, or deals that covered non-cat risk, such as Beazley’s two cyber ILS deals.
Year-to-date cat bond issuance has totaled about $10.7 billion, with about $700 million in lite cat bonds or deals covering non-cat exposure and $10 billion covering property cat exposure.
Anchor Re’s $50 million Gateway Re Ltd. (Series 2023-3) deal also went into effect today, further boosting the offering.
You can use our chart to analyze issuance by cat bond deal type (click the graphic below to view an interactive version). Using this chart, you can filter the types of cat bond transactions in or out of the data with the click of a button.
As we discussed recently, the Artemis community predicts that the real estate cat market will remain busy through the remainder of 2023, with a recent poll showing a majority expecting issuance to exceed $15 billion.
In fact, 40% expect an offering of $15 billion to $17.5 billion, and 12% expect a real estate catastrophe bond offering of $17.5 billion or more.
Given the exceptionally strong start to the year, a record year for total cat bond issuance and total real estate cat bond issuance looks increasingly likely.
All of our charts and visualizations are kept up to date as new cat bond issuances are completed, or as older bonds mature and risk rolls over. View our full range of cat bond market charts here.
