It’s official. If the present pipeline of recent deals all complete before the tip of this yr, at current targeted sizes or larger, then the catastrophe bond market will set a latest record for primary issuance in 2024 of roughly $16.54 billion, based on Artemis’ Deal Directory data.

With three latest catastrophe bond issuances having launched to investors in recent days, the pipeline of cat bonds currently scheduled to finish and settle this yr has built-up to roughly $1.93 billion, Artemis’ Deal Directory shows.

With settled catastrophe bond issuance already at just over $14.6 billion, across 144A property cat bonds, 144A deals covering specialty and other lines of risk, plus private cat bond issues we’ve tracked, the market is now on track to beat the previous record set a yr ago.

2023 saw a record almost $16.45 billion of recent cat bonds issued across these three categories, which beat the previous record from 2021 when almost $14 billion of recent cat bond deals got here to market.

Now, adding the roughly $1.93 billion current pipeline of cat bonds scheduled to finish before year-end to the present total of $14.6 billion, would take the market to a latest annual issuance record of virtually $16.54 billion for full-year 2024.

The chart above shows where issuance will end the yr if every catastrophe bond within the pipeline accomplished and settled at its current targeted size, for a complete of $16.54 billion of risk capital to be issued in 2024.

In fact, this figure could change, either by growing larger as a few of the cat bonds within the pipeline get upsized (which is entirely possible).

Also possible though, is that some perhaps don’t achieve their targets, or some could potentially be delayed and fall into the subsequent yr for settlement.

Nevertheless, with roughly five weeks of the yr left to run, there continues to be time for more latest cat bonds to affix the market pipeline and take the full-year catastrophe bond issuance for 2024 to a good more impressive record.

Taking a look at the categories of catastrophe bonds we track at Artemis in our important interactive chart on issuance and the dimensions of the outstanding cat bond market, so 144A property cat bonds, 144A deals covering specialty and other lines of risk, plus private cat bond issues we’ve tracked, there may be one other notable catastrophe bond market record that now looks set to be achieved.

144A property catastrophe bond issuance will reach a latest annual record high of just over $15.44 billion for 2024, if the pipeline completes on the currently targeted sizes this yr.

You’ll be able to analyse catastrophe bond issuance by yr, because it currently stands, split out by these three categories in one other of our interactive charts here.

Issuance of 144A catastrophe bonds covering other lines of business, corresponding to specialty and cyber, will reach $675 million if the pipeline completes as planned, which is currently down on the prior yr’s $832 million, but aligned with the 10-year average for this category of deals.

Thus far in 2024, including the pipeline, we’ve tracked 91 catastrophe bond issues, which is near the record of 95 deals tracked last yr.

In 2024 to date, we’ve tracked debut catastrophe bonds from 12 latest first-time sponsors which have entered the market, which is barely lower than the 13 first-time cat bond sponsors that got here to market in 2023.

Finally, if the pipeline completes as currently planned, then the outstanding catastrophe bond market, by Artemis’ reckoning, would reach $48.32 billion, representing cat bond market growth of roughly $3.36 billion over the course of 2024.

2024 looks set to be one other banner yr for the catastrophe bond issuance market and despite a heavy maturity schedule, the investor community has responded to sponsors demand for reinsurance and retrocession, to shut on a really impressive latest record volume of cat bond deals.

The catastrophe bond maturity schedule (view our chart tracking this here) is especially heavy within the first-half of 2025, with over $10 billion slated to mature within the first-half of next yr.

Which suggests the cat bond market may struggle to attain further growth through the first-half of 2025. However the maturity schedule is far lower for H2 next yr, so it seems there may be every likelihood of further catastrophe bond market growth across the full-year ahead.

So, it now looks likely we are going to see a second consecutive record yr of catastrophe bond market issuance in 2024, which drives home the health of the cat bond market and the still-growing demand for capital markets coverage from sponsors.

The Artemis Deal Directory lists all catastrophe bond and related transactions accomplished for the reason that market was formed within the late 1990’s. The directory also lists the cat bonds waiting to settle, that are highlighted in green at the highest of the list.

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

Download our free quarterly catastrophe bond market reports.

We track catastrophe bond and related ILS issuance data, essentially the most prolific sponsors available in the market, most energetic structuring and bookrunning banks and brokers, which risk modellers feature in cat bonds most continuously, plus far 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 those charts and visualisations are updated as soon as a latest cat bond issuance is accomplished, or as older issuances mature.

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