Catastrophe bond market already on-track for record Q1 issuance in 2025

The catastrophe bond market is already on-track for record first-quarter issuance in 2025, with almost $2.44 billion of new cat bonds settled so far this year and $1.93 billion of deals in the market pipeline that are scheduled to settle by end of March, according to Artemis’ extensive data on the sector.

Catastrophe bond market issuance activity is off to a record-breaking start in 2025, building on what were already exceptional records in cat bond deal volumes issued over the last two years.

As it stands, adding together the cat bond issuance completed so far in the first-quarter with the pipeline of new issuance scheduled to complete before its end, the total cat bond issuance, across 144A catastrophe bonds and the private cat bonds we’ve tracked, is set to be almost $4.37 billion in Q1.

The previous Q1 cat bond issuance record was set in 2024, when we tracked just over $4.23 billion of new issuance in our extensive Deal Directory.

Looking at only full Rule 144A catastrophe bond issuance, the settled deals and pipeline so far for Q1 2025 is already heading for over $4.28 billion.

The previous Q1 record for 144A cat bond issuance only was just over $4.07 billion set in 2024.

In fact, it looks like the first two months of this year alone will set a new January and February combined cat bond issuance record, once the pipeline deals for this month are all settled.

Given we are only approaching the middle of February, there is plenty of time left for the pipeline to continue building, for some of those deals to upsize, and so extend the Q1 cat bond issuance record that looks destined to be set in 2025.

In terms of the number of cat bond deals we’ve listed in the Artemis Deal Directory so far in 2025, the figure currently stands at 24 entries, so not far behind the record of 25 which had been set in both 2020 and 2022.

However, those two prior years both featured more in the way of private cat bond issuance.

In terms of only 144A cat bond entries in our Deal Directory, the total so far for Q1 2025 is 17, while the previous record was 18 a year ago, so that record also looks likely to fall.

In terms of cat bond risk capital outstanding, our measure of the market is slightly lower than at the end of 2024 at this time, at $49.4 billion.

There are significant maturity volumes to come, but the pipeline will outpace them for Q1 this year, meaning additional market growth is possible by the end of the quarter.

Market participants have the appetite to recycle and repurpose that cash, while also putting money into both renewal and incremental cat bond issues that appear over the coming weeks and months, which should continue to buoy issuance and provide attractive issuance conditions for sponsors.

2025 is set to be another very busy year for the catastrophe bond market, its fund managers and investors.

As insurance and reinsurance company sponsors of cat bonds continue to increase in number and look for larger deal limits, at this stage there is every chance we witness another particularly strong full-year of issuance, with  the potential for more new records to be 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 key of months at the bottom to include and exclude any for your analysis).

The Artemis Deal Directory lists all catastrophe bond and related transactions completed since the market was formed in the late 1990’s. The directory also lists the cat bonds waiting to settle, which are highlighted in green at the top of the list.

Analyse the catastrophe bond market using our charts and visualisations, which are kept up-to-date as every new transaction settles.

Download our free quarterly catastrophe bond market reports.

We track catastrophe bond and related ILS issuance data, the most prolific sponsors in the market, most active structuring and bookrunning banks and brokers, which risk modellers feature in cat bonds most frequently, plus much more.

Find all of our charts and data here, or via the Artemis Dashboard which provides a handy one-page view of cat bond market metrics.

All of these charts and visualisations are updated as soon as a new cat bond issuance is completed, or as older issuances mature.

All of our catastrophe bond market charts and visualisations are up-to-date and include data on new cat bond transactions as they settle.