Catastrophe bond and related insurance-linked securities (ILS) market issuance reached a huge $7.1 billion for the first-quarter of 2025, which has driven the size of the outstanding market to a new all-time-high of $52.2 billion, .On the back of a record year for the catastrophe bond and related insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, 2025 has also ., we dissect the record level of Q1 2025 issuance, which increased by more than $2.8 billion year on year.

Q1 2025 is now the second largest single quarter of cat bond issuance ever, behind only Q2 2024’s $8.4 billion.It’s also only the third time in the market’s history that issuance has exceeded $7 billion in a single quarter and builds on the $17.7 billion of new risk capital brought to market in 2024.breaks down the types, sizes, perils, triggers, and pricing metrics for Q1 2025 cat bond and related ILS issuance, as well as detailing upcoming maturities and the outstanding market.

Traditional 144A property cat bond issuance dominated the quarter, reaching $6.3 billion, which is surpassed only by Q2 2024 and Q2 2023 for total issuance in a single quarter for this type of deal.When you include other, non-cat risk, 144A transactions, .This quarter’s issuance came from a Q1 record 34 transactions comprised of 56 tranches of notes and featured repeat and new sponsors, some privately placed transactions, as well as a diverse mix of catastrophe and non-catastrophe perils in various regions.

of the transactions placed in the quarter, revealing a continuation of the spread tightening witnessed in the final three months of last year.Against a relatively flat average expected loss year on year, while the spread has fallen further, although still remains healthy.Clearly, though, pricing dynamics are still attractive to investors as many of the tranches of notes on offer in the quarter increased in size while marketing.

At the same time, sponsors benefited from strong execution on many deals, a continuation of the Q4 2024 trend.The first three months of 2025 also saw $4.4 billion of deal maturities, so it wouldn’t have been surprising if the market had shrunk from the end of 2024 given average Q1 issuance over the past decade was $3.6 billion.Instead, a record $7.1 billion of new issuance absorbed risk capital in the market, .

That represents stunning 17% cat bond market growth, based on our measure of risk capital outstanding, in just the last twelve months since the end of Q1 2024.Impressively, the outstanding market size is now some 5.4% larger than it was at the end of last year, which is a significant single quarter of growth for the cat bond and related ILS sector.In addition, also features unique insights from our kind partners, with global law firm Appleby commenting on ILS activity in the period from its viewpoint.

.We will keep you updated on all catastrophe bond and related ILS transaction issuance as 2025 progresses, and we’ll report on the evolving trends in the cat bond, insurance-linked securities (ILS) and collateralised reinsurance market.For full details of first-quarter 2025 cat bond and related ILS issuance, including a breakdown of deal flow by factors such as perils, triggers, expected loss, and pricing, as well as analysis of the issuance trends seen by month and year.

  For copies of all our catastrophe bond market reports, ..All of our Artemis Live insurance-linked securities (ILS), catastrophe bonds and reinsurance can be accessed online.Our can be subscribed to using the typical podcast services providers, including Apple, Google, Spotify and more.