Bermuda again saw strong registration numbers of new catastrophe bond, insurance-linked security (ILS) and alternative or third-party reinsurance capital related entities in the first-half of 2026 and while the total dropped slightly compared to the prior year, first-time cat bond market entrants bolstered the total.
There are other types of companies that were registered which may play a role as life insurance-related capital vehicles, but it is harder to know whether any of these are capitalised by institutional investors and playing a sidecar role for their sponsors.
Of the 15 new company registrations we can definitely identify as having an ILS use-case, 12 of these are restricted special purpose insurers (SPI).
10 of the SPI’s registered in Bermuda in H1 2026 have been established for catastrophe bond issuances, 1 as a dedicated structure for a quota share or sidecar type partnership between investor PGGM and PartnerRe (which we reported on last week), or in the case of 1 of them as an issuer for mortgage insurance-linked notes sponsored by MGIC.
Notably, of the 10 SPI’s registered in Bermuda in the first-half of this year to be used for catastrophe bond issuances, 7 of them were for first-time sponsors to enter the market with their debut cat bond deals.
As we’ve explained before, the Bermuda SPI structure allows a sponsor to issue multiple series of cat bond notes under a single program, so they tend to be re-used multiple times as new sponsors become repeat sponsors.
Hence, the number of new registrations has been relatively steady over-time in total, but the number of SPI’s established for new sponsors has been rising over-time, which is both a sign of the health of the catastrophe bond market, the broadening acceptance of cat bonds as part of sponsors reinsurance towers and also the continued dominance of Bermuda in providing a home for cat bond issuance vehicles.
As well as the 12 SPI’s registered in Bermuda, there were also 3 collateralized insurer registrations in the first-half of 2026.
Two of these were casualty ILS or sidecar focused, from AXIS Capital setting up a new Monarch Point Re vehicle in January, and Everest Group’s more recent launch of Annapurna Re Ltd., the specialty re/insurers first casualty reinsurance sidecar.
The third collateralized insurer registered in H1 2026 is Clear Star Re, which is a structure backed in part by public and private credit focused asset manager Clear Haven Capital Management as it targets the casualty and longer-tailed ILS space, we understand.
It’s notable that all three of the collateralized insurer registrations are linked to casualty or longer-tailed type ILS strategies, which of course is another ILS market growth area and again a market segment that Bermuda is dominating company registrations for.
While total cat bond and ILS related company registration numbers in Bermuda are down for the first-half of 2026, in fact lower than every year since H1 2020 (although higher than most prior to that), the fact the SPI became a multi-use cat bond program structure and we continue to see more first-time market entrants establishing them is a very strong signal for future cat bond market growth, as well as for Bermuda’s dominant role as home to those structures.
The latest Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) insurance registrations data shows that the island continues to build on its position as the leading domicile for insurance-linked securities (ILS) of all kinds, as well as for growing the use of third-party capital within innovative structures that directly source reinsurance-linked returns for institutional investors.
As well as being home to the issuance structures, Bermuda is also the listings home to the vast majority of catastrophe bond issuance on the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX).
Given the number of cat bond and ILS structures has not been growing in any other domicile, but the market has been expanding at pace over the last few years, Bermuda’s position has become ever-more important to the ILS community and the island’s regulators have responded appropriately through their support and prudent regulation of the structure’s the sector uses to do its business.
You can read about and view details of many of the Bermuda registered SPI’s and other ILS structures in our catastrophe bond Deal Directory and our reinsurance sidecar transaction listing.
