With the settlement today of two new catastrophe bonds, the 144A marketplace for new cat bond issuance has now just reached the $20 billion milestone in 2025, while including private deals the total amount of settled issuance tracked by Artemis this year is now $20.62 billion.$20 billion of full Rule 144A catastrophe bonds is a significant new annual issuance milestone in this segment of the insurance-linked securities (ILS) marketplace.Of course, with a pipeline that still includes at least $2.565 billion of new 144A cat bond issuance still scheduled to settle before the end of 2025 at this time, the annual total will be much higher (note, that figure is growing as we write).With the settlement today of the California Earthquake Authority’s new $770 million catastrophe bond and Mapfre Re’s new €125 million Recoletos Re DAC (Series 2025-1) cat bond, the annual 144A issuance total now rounds to $20 billion.

Based on our currency conversion for the Mapfre Re deal at $144.3 million, this has taken the 2025 total for Rule 144A catastrophe bond issuance tracked by Artemis to precisely US $19.99505 billion, so rounding to the new US $20 billion milestone.This new record level of 144A cat bond issuance is testament to the hard work of structuring agents, bookrunners, cat bond fund managers and investors, as well as key service providers from law firms, to insurance managers, to trust providers, risk modellers and other companies that have played key roles in supporting cedent demand for capital markets backed reinsurance and retrocession in securitized form.You can see , which you can filter using the key to exclude private deals: With 144A cat bond issuance now standing at $20 billion (rounded) so far in 2025 and a further $626 million of private cat bonds also tracked by Artemis, our total for issuance stands at more than $20.62 billion at this time.

The market pipeline, of new cat bonds still being offered and yet to settle, (a figure that is growing as we write as we understand there are further new deals and upsizing of others).As a result, our latest projection for full-year cat bond issuance is for at least $23.185 billion of total issuance (across 144A and private cat bonds), around $22.565 billion for just 144A cat bonds.Those figures are likely to rise, as it is very hard to imagine that none of the new cat bonds in the market upsize further before they settle given the strong investor demand being seen.

Notably, property catastrophe risks continue to be the driver for growth and expansion of the catastrophe bond market.As of today, settled 144A property cat bond issuance in 2025 has reached $19.34 billion, significantly outpacing maturities that have occurred through the year.Artemis’ measure of the size of the market, in terms of risk capital outstanding across 144A and private cat bonds, is currently standing at just over $57.86 billion, a new record high as of today.

That figure has increased by a stunning $8.384 billion since the end of 2024, which is particularly strong growth of the outstanding catastrophe bond market through a year with meaningful maturing limit as well.Also of note, November 2025 is already the busiest for new cat bond issuance in history, with almost $1.77 billion settled so far, beating the previous high of November 2023 when we recorded almost $1.68 billion of issuance.The remaining pipeline of new cat bonds scheduled to complete and settle in 2025 is all slated for December at this time, totalling the $2.565 billion mentioned earlier.

The record for December cat bond issuance was set in 2023 at $3.597 billion, so there is still a way to go for the market to eclipse that record as well.But there is plenty of time left for deal’s to upsize and for additional new cat bonds to launch for settlement next month.2025 is already a landmark year for the catastrophe bond market and will set a high benchmark for annual issuance for future years to try and beat.

Protection buyers are finding catastrophe bonds an extremely efficient form of reinsurance capital at this time, which bodes well for the start of 2026 and beyond..We track , the most prolific sponsors in the market, most active , which risk modellers feature in cat bonds most frequently, plus much .

, or via the Artemis Dashboard which provides a handy one-page view of cat bond market metrics.All of these are updated as soon as a new cat bond issuance is completed, or as older issuances mature..

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