ILS market insights: February 2022

The Insurance-Linked Securities (ILS) market ended another year on a high note as the annual new issuance record was broken once again.

This milestone was achieved in spite of a challenging year of catastrophe losses and with most market participants working from home. The ILS market continues to demonstrate its resilience with bonds issued in every month of last year apart from August and almost USD 13 billion of total new issuance for the calendar year.

Most encouraging was the number of new sponsors and ESG developments in the asset class. Notable new sponsors this past year included the Government of Jamaica, California insurer Farmers and Dutch insurer NN. Swiss Re was proud to bring each of these sponsors to market, introducing a breadth of new risks to investors and encouraging growth. We are also pleased to see that it has become more common for ILS bonds to include ESG disclosures. We believe is is the start of a very positive journey for the growth of the asset class.