BSX maintains position as ILS listings leader, with ~92% of cat bond market

The Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX) has maintained its position as the leading exchange in the world for the listing of insurance-linked securities (ILS) instruments in 2024, with roughly 92% of outstanding catastrophe bond issuance finding a home there as of the end of the year.

In the catastrophe bond and related private ILS space, the BSX has carved out its leading position thanks to the efficiency of its listings service offering and its engagement with the ILS market over many years.

It is helped by the fact the island of Bermuda remains the pre-eminent domicile for locating and transacting ILS, with the majority of the global market utilising structures there for catastrophe bonds and the full-range of collateralized reinsurance arrangements.

This is testament not just to the expertise located on the island and the fact Bermuda responded quickly in the early 2000’s to capture a large share of cat bond and ILS activity, but also to the fact its regulator has gone to great lengths to ensure ILS structures in Bermuda meet the needs of both sponsors and investors, while ensuring oversight is robust and matches or bests international capital market standards.

At the end of 2023, the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX) had grown its overall insurance-linked securities (ILS) listings, including catastrophe bond programs and notes, any preference or other share types from quota share structures such as reinsurance sidecars, listed fund units, and mortgage insurance-linked securities (ILS) to an overall value of $59.15 billion.

That represented a new high, but even before that it had become evident the mortgage insurance-linked securities (ILS) segment was shrinking, as sponsors redeemed notes and this has continued through 2024, resulting in a shrinking of the overall ILS listings for the BSX.

Overall insurance-linked listings declined to just under $56 billion last year, but, mortgage deals aside, in the catastrophe and non-catastrophe ILS and cat bond space, the BSX has continued to expand and grow its market share as well.

At the end of 2023, catastrophe bond related listings stood at $40.8 billion, but grew by 10% over the course of 2024 to reach almost $44.9 billion by the end of the year.

Taking into account non-cat cat bonds as well, the BSX’s listings of all these instruments reached $45.43 billion as of December 31st 2024, which represented approximately 10% growth as well.

Most impressive though is the fact the BSX has maintained its dominance of the catastrophe bond related listings market in the 2024, benefiting from the significant issuance seen.

At the end of 2023, the BSX housed almost 92% of the market’s catastrophe and non-catastrophe bond listings and as of the end of 2024, the percentage of cat bond market risk capital outstanding housed at the BSX remains the same.

That’s because the BSX has listed virtually every catastrophe bond that came to market in 2024, so tracked the growth of the market, which was also roughly 10%, as we detailed in our latest cat bond market report.

Another notable fact is that the number of catastrophe bond program structures listed on the BSX rose from 108 to 114 over the course of 2024.

These program structures are typically able to issue multiple series of catastrophe bond notes and can live for a number of years, being reused by their sponsoring insurance and reinsurance companies.

So the increase in programs is also indicative of the health and growth of the catastrophe bond market, so another positive indicator for the BSX, Bermuda and the rest of the ILS sector.

The BSX has benefited from its attention to detail in how it approaches the ILS market, the ease of interacting with it and service level it provides to sponsors, issuers and other market participants, all of which enable it to continue to dominate the ILS market as a listing venue.

Find details of most catastrophe bonds listed on the BSX in our Artemis Deal Directory.

Find information on many of the reinsurance sidecars that have their notes listed on the BSX in our collateralized reinsurance sidecar directory.

Find details on every mortgage insurance-linked notes issuance here.