RenaissanceRe reported a 209% increase in fee income earned from its range of reinsurance joint venture vehicles and insurance-linked securities structures in the first-quarter, while investors benefitted from meaningful income and opted to take profits after the strong performance of these strategies.Fresh capital raising for the reinsurance joint venture vehicles and ILS fund structures was much lower in the last quarter again, with RenaissanceRe (RenRe), the global reinsurance company and third-party capital manager, reporting $61.4 million raised.There was a clear catastrophe bond strategy focus in the capital raising during Q1 2026, with $46 million raised in the Medici fund and a further $15.4 million in the Medici UCITS cat bond fund strategy.Capital returns outweighed this considerably though, as RenRe reports delivering a significant $930.3 million back to investors in the third-party and ILS capital strategies.

This included $729.5 million of capital returned to investors in the DaVinci, Vermeer and Top Layer vehicles through share repurchases and dividends, with the company saying this followed the strong earnings generated by these vehicles in 2025.It’s a sign of RenRe continuing to right-size the structures and ensuring its third-party investors benefit from the historically strong performance of certain of its third-party reinsurance capital strategies.In addition, some third-party investors withdrew capital as they rebalanced their allocations following the strong performance and earnings generated.

Total net income attributable to redeemable noncontrolling interests for Q1 2026, which is a measure of sorts for returns and profits earned and attributed to third-party capital investors in the period, reached $222.5 million for the period.Strong underwriting income in the DaVinci equity supported sidecar-like structure and the PGGM backed reinsurer partnership Vermeer Re were key drivers of this.In addition, $116.4 million of net investment income in the investment portfolios of the reinsurance joint ventures and managed ILS funds drove a portion of the income attributable to third-party investors.

These strong earnings for investors would have been higher but for a reported $65.2 million of net realized and unrealized losses in the investment portfolios of the joint ventures and managed funds, as well as $72.2 million of management and performance fee income, RenRe explained.Such strong performance that has enabled investors to benefit from earnings in the reinsurance joint ventures and ILS funds has also driven particularly strong fee income for RenaissanceRe itself.The company reported Q1 2026 fee income from the third-party capital strategies of $94.126 million, a meaningful 209% increase on the prior year period almost $30.5 million.

Remember that Q1 2025 was impacted by the California wildfires that affected Los Angeles.RenRe attributed the high fee income earned to the strong current year underwriting results, as well as recognition of deferred performance fees linked to a return of capital in DaVinci, plus net favorable development on prior accident years within DaVinci.Management fee income was reported at over $47.9 million for Q1 2026, up from just over $46 million in the prior year period.

Performance fees reached almost $46.2 million in Q1 2026, much better than the -$15.6 million from Q1 2025 when the wildfires dented this metric.The capital returns to investors are evident in RenaissanceRe’s reporting of redeemable non-controlling interests for some of its third-party capital structures.Since the end of 2025, redeemable non-controlling interests in DaVinci are down over $400 million, from $3.7 billion to $3.29 billion at March 31st 2026.

Vermeer Re saw its redeemable non-controlling interests fall slightly from $1.922 billion to $1.824 billion, while the Fontana casualty and specialty ILS joint venture fell from almost $580 million to $494.6 million.Conversely, Medici saw its redeemable non-controlling interests rise in Q1 2026, from $1.398 billion to $1.433 billion.That’s the effect of the capital returns to and profit taking by investors backing some of the reinsurance joint venture vehicles in the period, as they looked to rebalance allocations and realise some of the meaningful profits earned by the structures.

Remember that the redeemable non-controlling interest metric is not the true measure of third-party capital assets under management at RenaissanceRe Capital Partners.As we reported before, third-party investor capital under management in RenaissanceRe Capital Partners range of reinsurance joint-ventures and insurance-linked securities strategies reached a new all-time high of just over $9 billion at the end of 2025, before dropping slightly to $8.24 billion by January 1st after investors took profits at that time.It’s possible the true assets under management metric may have fallen further by March 31st 2026, given the returns of capital and profit taking reported.

We’ll update you when the end of Q1 AUM data is available.Finally, it’s worth also noting that underwriting performance was strong in the first-quarter of 2026 for RenaissanceRe, with the company reporting a 73% combined ratio across the business, but a particularly impressive 34.1% in the property underwriting segment and just 20.4% in the catastrophe class.While property catastrophe premiums were down slightly in the first-quarter, excluding the effect of reinstatement premiums in the prior year, RenaissanceRe said it found opportunities for growth that helped to offset the rate environment to a degree.

Kevin O’Donnell, CEO, said, “In a competitive, but still attractive environment, we successfully deployed additional limit into our highest margin business, property catastrophe.” View information on many dedicated ILS fund managers, as well as reinsurers offering ILS style investment opportunities, such as RenaissanceRe, in our ..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.