Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending May 25th 2025, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics.To ensure you never miss a thing or get our email alerts for every article we publish.As investors reimagine 60/40, KKR suggests adding insurance for diversification As investors consider their options post the US Liberation Day tariff’s announcement and resulting volatility, investment giant KKR anticipates the traditional 60/40 stock and bond portfolio split will be reimagined, with the firm’s Henry McVey suggesting the addition of insurance as an asset class for its diversification benefits.

Severe weather & tornado outbreak could drive $5bn+ insured losses: BMS’ Siffert A recent severe weather outbreak across the US midwest is likely to have created more than $5 billion in losses for the insurance and reinsurance industry, perhaps making this outbreak the largest severe weather loss event of 2025 so far, according to BMS Group Senior Meteorologist Andrew Siffert.Blackstone multi-strat alternatives fund adds first direct cat bond investment Blackstone Alternative Asset Management, the hedge fund solutions unit of Blackstone, has made the first direct catastrophe bond investment for one of its flagship muti-strat alternatives funds recently.State Farm in record cat bond sponsorship, with $1.55bn Merna Re 2025 We’ve learned that State Farm has been back in the catastrophe bond market in recent weeks and has now secured what is a record amount of reinsurance limit from the capital markets in a single visit in cat bond form, as it priced $1.55 billion of multi-peril protection via sponsorship of four Merna Re (Series 2025) cat bonds.

Parametric cat bond triggers may face NOAA disaster database wind-down uncertainty: AM Best The decommissioning of NOAA’s billion-dollar weather disaster database could force a rethink of parametric triggers used in catastrophe bonds and hamper insurers’ ability to model and price secondary perils, according to global ratings agency AM Best.A competitive environment.But terms, conditions & attachments stable: Swiss Re CEO Property and natural catastrophe reinsurance are the areas of the market where Swiss Re sees rising competition, but the firm’s CEO Andreas Berger said last week that he still sees them as healthy, with terms, conditions and attachments stable, explaining that he is “a believer in cat.” Aspen Capital Markets generated 50% of 2024 fee income from casualty lines Aspen Capital Markets, the third-party, ILS and alternative reinsurance capital management unit of global re/insurer Aspen, generated half of the fee income earned in calendar year 2024 from managing casualty insurance and reinsurance opportunities for its investors.

June property cat renewals seen down ~10%.Jan 2026 down more without losses: KBW Analysts from KBW have said that reinsurance executives they met with recently are mostly expecting the June 1 renewals to see property catastrophe rates down around 10% on a risk-adjusted basis, but with significant variation by layer and top-layers where catastrophe bonds and industry-loss warranties (ILWs) sit to see larger declines.NOAA forecasts 60% chance of above-normal Atlantic hurricane season With just over one week until the official start of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season on June 1st, US weather agency NOAA has issued its first forecast, giving a 60% chance of above normal activity levels, with between 6 and 10 hurricanes predicted over the coming months.

Efficiently structured ILS transactions lower capital costs for re/insurers: Augment Risk Efficiently structured insurance-linked securities (ILS) transactions are playing a pivotal role in reducing capital costs for re/insurers, according to risk capital and reinsurance solutions broking firm Augment Risk.This is not every article published on Artemis during the last week, just the most popular among our readers over the last seven days..

To ensure you always stay up to date with Artemis and never miss a story ...

Get listed 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.