“We’ve had two fantastic years,” said Dirk Schmelzer, senior fund manager at Plenum Investments AG, a Zurich-based firm that specializes in insurance-linked securities. And that’s “attracted new money,” he said.
After emerging from an unusually active hurricane season with market-beating returns, catastrophe bonds are rapidly adding investors.
Despite the increase in extreme weather — 2024 marked the ninth straight season in which the Atlantic basin suffered above-average storm activity — catastrophe bonds have proved highly resilient. This year, they’re on track to return about 16%, after delivering a record 20% in 2023.
