Best of Artemis, week ending August 10th 2025

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending August 10th 2025, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics. To ensure you never miss a thing subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates or get our email alerts for every article we publish.

1. Price pressure from ILS non-existent. There is no soft market: Munich Re CEO
   According to Munich Re’s CEO, price pressure in reinsurance from alternative capital and insurance-linked securities (ILS) investors is “simply non-existent” with no major build-up of ILS capital seen and Joachim Wenning also does not believe reinsurance is soft.
2. Progressive added parametric SCS aggregate reinsurance for 2025
   During its reinsurance renewals for 2025, US insurer Progressive added a novel parametric severe convective storm aggregate reinsurance arrangement, to provide it with responsive aggregate protection for qualifying thunderstorm, hail and tornado loss events.
3. TWIA may consider early cat bond redemption, as reinsurance funding need for 2026 evolves
   At a Board meeting of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA), members discussed the evolution of the property insurer of last resort’s funding under new state legislation, concluding that it may result in TWIA opting to reset and perhaps even redeem early some of its catastrophe bonds.
4. Blackstone backs F&G annuity reinsurance sidecar with $1bn of private capital
   Blackstone has again demonstrated its appetite to source insurance and reinsurance-linked opportunities for private capital clients with a newly announced life and annuities flow reinsurance sidecar-like structure established for F&G Annuities & Life, Inc. and backed by $1 billion of capital from Blackstone managed funds.
5. Fermat Cat Bond Fund hits $2.1bn, replacing long-standing GAM FCM strategy
   Fermat Capital Management has shuttered the long-standing GAM FCM Cat Bond Fund, an offshore strategy it took over as part of its recent separation with asset manager GAM, with substantially all of the investors having now moved to its newer offshore Fermat Cat Bond Fund.
6. Maintaining reinsurance attachment points equivalent to 20-30% pricing benefit: Berenberg
   Keeping reinsurance attachment points stable at their current levels where they had been reset to during the recent hard market is seen as the most critical factor in reinsurance profitability, with analysts from Berenberg stating this is equivalent to a 20% to 30% benefit in terms of pricing.
7. Artemis London 2025: More speakers and our agenda outline revealed
   With just a few weeks to go until our Artemis London 2025 conference on September 2nd, we have announced more speakers and revealed our agenda outline. You must register soon if you want to attend.
8. Global insured cat losses reach $80bn in H1’25, FY total may exceed $150bn: Swiss Re
   The Swiss Re Institute has estimated that global insured losses from natural catastrophe events reached US $80 billion in the first half of 2025, which is almost double the 10-year average and more than half of the firm’s projected full year figure of $150 billion.
9. Seasonality lifts catastrophe bond market returns to one of the best July’s ever
   The catastrophe bond market delivered a total return of 1.47% in July 2025, as seasonality kicked in and drove what we’re told was one of the best performances for that month of any year in the history of the benchmark Swiss Re Global Cat Bond Index.
10. TSR lifts 2025 Atlantic hurricane forecast slightly, now 15% above normal
    Conditions in the Atlantic tropics now look more favourable than they did one month ago, which has led Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) to slightly increase its forecast for the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, with activity levels now anticipated to be around 15% above normal.

This is not every article published on Artemis during the last week, just the most popular among our readers over the last seven days. There were 30 new articles published in the last week.

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