Swiss Re, the Zurich managers and the size of the market

Swiss Re as arranger, sponsor and manager

When the asset manager GAM and Swiss Re announced a partnership for GAM’s catastrophe bond fund range in April 2025, the press release gave a figure that illustrates Swiss Re’s place in the market. Swiss Re had by then arranged catastrophe bond transactions of roughly USD 50 billion since 1997, which the release described as more than a quarter of all catastrophe bonds issued in that period. Swiss Re also managed about USD 5 billion of insurance-linked securities assets at that time. Under the partnership, which took effect on 7 May 2025, a Swiss Re subsidiary became co-investment manager of the GAM Star Cat Bond UCITS fund and related funds, which had about USD 3 billion in assets at the end of March 2025, while GAM retained risk oversight and distribution. Both companies noted in the announcement that their headquarters were in Zurich.¹

Swiss Re also created some of the market’s measuring instruments. The Swiss Re cat bond indices were introduced in 2007 to track the returns of the catastrophe bond market, and Swiss Re Capital Markets described them as the first total return indices provided to the sector.² Indices matter in a young asset class because they allow pension funds and their consultants to benchmark managers, to model expected returns and to justify an allocation to an investment committee. The Swiss Re index has since become the reference against which many funds report. In its market commentary for 2025, Swiss Re reported that its catastrophe bond total return index had delivered 11.4 per cent for the year, supported by high running coupons and limited loss activity.³

Swiss Re continues to sponsor transactions for its own account. Its principal vehicle for retrocession, Matterhorn Re, has returned to the market repeatedly in 2025 and 2026, and Artemis reported a series of Matterhorn Re issues in 2026 that covered peak North American perils on an aggregate basis.⁴ A reinsurer that buys protection in the capital markets while selling protection to primary insurers performs a kind of arbitrage between two pools of capital. When investor appetite is strong and spreads are low, retrocession through catastrophe bonds may cost less than traditional retrocession from other reinsurers. When the capital markets retreat after a large loss, the traditional market regains its pricing power. The ability to operate on both sides is part of what the market calls Swiss Re’s alternative capital business.

Swiss sponsors and Swiss francs

The catastrophe bond market has always been dominated by United States perils, above all hurricane and earthquake risk. Swiss sponsors of Swiss risks have been rare. The most instructive exception is the Gebäudeversicherung Bern, the public building insurer of the canton of Bern, which obtains its business through the statutory monopoly that many cantons still maintain for fire and natural hazard insurance of buildings. In December 2014 it placed CHF 70 million of notes through Leine Re, a segregated account of Hannover Re’s Bermuda vehicle Kaith Re Ltd, to protect itself against Swiss property catastrophe losses on an indemnity basis. The notes were listed on the Bermuda Stock Exchange and matured in January 2016. Artemis recorded the transaction as the first Swiss franc denominated catastrophe bond and noted that the Swiss managers LGT ILS Partners and Schroders had been involved at an early stage.⁵ A few weeks later, in January 2015, a second Swiss franc transaction named Gurten was structured through Bermuda. Two authors from Swiss Re later cited it as an example of a Swiss catastrophe bond that had to be placed offshore because Switzerland lacked a suitable legal framework for such vehicles.⁶

The episode shows both the potential and the limits of the Swiss market. Swiss investors, including pension funds that hold their liabilities in Swiss francs, may welcome instruments that carry no currency risk. Swiss risks, however, are modest in size compared with the Florida hurricane or California earthquake exposures that fill the market. In addition, the cantonal building insurers pool part of their natural hazard risk among themselves through their own reinsurance arrangements.⁷ Swiss franc catastrophe bonds have therefore remained an occasional product.

The Zurich cluster of managers

On the buy side of the market, Zurich and its surroundings host one of the densest concentrations of specialist insurance-linked securities managers in the world. The directory of managers maintained by Artemis lists, among firms based in Switzerland, Euler ILS Partners in Zurich, LGT ILS Partners in Pfäffikon in the canton of Schwyz, Plenum Investments in Zurich, Solidum Partners in Zurich, Icosa Investments and Twelve Securis, which is based in Zurich and London.⁸ Their histories show how banking, reinsurance and asset management in Zurich have fed one another.

LGT ILS Partners traces its origins to 2001. Its investment team came from Clariden Leu, the Zurich private bank owned by Credit Suisse, whose insurance-linked investment business LGT acquired in early 2012. In November 2014 LGT separated its actively managed insurance-linked securities funds from its fund-of-funds business by creating LGT ILS Partners Ltd as an asset manager licensed by FINMA, into which the former Clariden Leu team was transferred.⁹ By June 2024 the firm managed about USD 5.8 billion, including direct investments and fund-of-funds solutions, with a team of roughly twenty-five investment professionals split between Switzerland and Bermuda.¹⁰ The location in Pfäffikon, on the southern shore of Lake Zurich, belongs to the pattern by which Zurich-based financial firms have settled in neighbouring cantons with lower taxes while drawing on the labour market of the city.

The second large manager was built by former reinsurance professionals. Twelve Capital was founded in Zurich in 2010 by Urs Ramseier and Christoph Bürer. In July 2024 it agreed to merge with Securis Investment Partners, a London manager founded in 2005, creating a combined firm with about USD 7.8 billion of assets and offices in London, Zurich, Munich, Tokyo and Bermuda, with Ramseier as chief executive.¹¹ The merged firm trades as Twelve Securis. In mid-2026 it reported about USD 8 billion of insurance-linked assets within firm-wide assets of about USD 9.4 billion, invested in catastrophe bonds, private insurance-linked securities, insurance bonds and insurance private debt.¹²

A third line leads through a global asset manager. Secquaero Advisors, a Zurich reinsurance-linked investment boutique run by Dirk Lohmann, sold a 30 per cent stake to Schroders in 2013, a controlling stake in February 2016 and the remaining shares in July 2019. At the time of the full acquisition, the Zurich team managed about USD 3 billion in reinsurance-linked assets, ranging from pure catastrophe bond strategies to private transactions and dedicated life insurance funds.¹³ The business now operates within Schroders Capital. A fourth manager emerged from the collapse of Credit Suisse. After UBS had absorbed Credit Suisse in 2023, it agreed in July 2024 to sell Credit Suisse Insurance Linked Strategies Ltd, which then had a track record of twenty-one years, to its management team led by Niklaus Hilti.¹⁴ The company, registered in Zurich, now bears the name Euler ILS Partners AG. The commercial register records it as a collective asset manager whose purpose includes financial engineering and asset management services related to insurance-linked strategies.¹⁵

Plenum Investments, founded in Zurich in 2001, launched its catastrophe bond business in 2010 and reported about USD 2.3 billion of assets in August 2026.¹⁶ Smaller firms complete the picture. Several of these managers began inside larger institutions and became independent, which reflects a pattern familiar from the history of Zurich private banking, where specialist teams have repeatedly left large banks to found boutiques. The reinsurance expertise of the city, concentrated at Swiss Re and in the reinsurance units of Zurich Insurance Group and other companies, supplies the underwriting and modelling skills that these managers need.

The size of the market in 2025 and 2026

The market that these managers serve has grown rapidly in recent years. According to the quarterly reports of Artemis, catastrophe bond issuance reached a record of USD 25.6 billion in 2025, 45 per cent more than in the previous year. The outstanding market grew by 24 per cent to USD 61.3 billion at the end of that year. Fifteen new sponsors entered the market during 2025.¹⁷ Swiss Re’s own count, which uses a different definition, gave a similar picture, with USD 24.7 billion of new issuance and an outstanding notional of nearly USD 60 billion. The growth continued in 2026. Artemis reported nearly USD 18 billion of issuance in the first half of the year, including a record month of almost USD 6.93 billion in May, and an outstanding market of USD 65.6 billion at the end of June 2026.¹⁸

Catastrophe bonds form only one segment of the broader pool of alternative reinsurance capital, which also includes collateralised reinsurance, sidecars and industry loss warranties. The broker Aon estimated this alternative capital at USD 136 billion at the end of 2025, an increase of 18 per cent over the year, within total global reinsurance capital of USD 785 billion.¹⁹ Alternative capital thus accounted for roughly one sixth of the capital that backs the world’s reinsurance. For Zurich this is a structural change in its own core industry. The reinsurers of the city now compete with investors, many of whom are advised by managers based in the same city, while relying on those same investors for part of their own protection.

Notes

1. GAM Investments, press release “GAM Investments and Swiss Re announce new Cat Bond and ILS investment partnership” (7 April 2025), on Swiss Re’s roughly USD 50 billion of arranged cat bonds since 1997 (more than a quarter of the total), its approximately USD 5 billion of ILS assets, the USD 3 billion GAM fund range and the effective date of 7 May 2025, https://www.gam.com/en/news-articles/press-releases/corporate/gam-investments-and-swiss-re-announce-new-cat-bond-and-ils-investment-partnership. ↩
2. Swiss Re, “Swiss Re Cat Bond Indices Methodology”, on the launch of the indices in 2007 as the first total return indices for the sector, https://www.swissre.com/Library/swiss-re-cat-bond-indices-methodology.html. ↩
3. Swiss Re, “ILS market insights: February 2026”, on 2025 issuance of USD 24.7 billion, an outstanding notional of nearly USD 60 billion at year-end (up from about USD 48 billion), the 11.4 per cent return of the Swiss Re Cat Bond Total Return Index and the dominance of US wind exposure, https://www.swissre.com/our-business/alternative-capital-partners/ils-market-insights-february-2026.html. ↩
4. Artemis, “Swiss Re secures upsized $150m aggregate retro from Matterhorn Re 2026-1 cat bond” and related 2026 reports on Matterhorn Re 2026-2 and 2026-3, https://www.artemis.bm/news/swiss-re-secures-upsized-150m-aggregate-retro-from-matterhorn-re-2026-1-cat-bond/. ↩
5. Artemis Deal Directory, “Leine Re”, on the December 2014 private cat bond of CHF 70 million for Gebäudeversicherung Bern through a segregated account of Kaith Re Ltd, its indemnity trigger, its listing in Bermuda and its status as the first Swiss franc denominated cat bond, https://www.artemis.bm/deal-directory/leine-re/. ↩
6. Fabian Meier and Matthias Wühler, “Swiss Insurance Supervision Act establishes new Regime for Special Purpose Vehicle”, CapLaw-2024-35, referring to the Gurten Swiss franc catastrophe bond of January 2015 structured through Bermuda, https://caplaw.ch/2024/swiss-insurance-supervision-act-establishes-new-regime-for-special-purpose-vehicle/. ↩
7. Vereinigung Kantonaler Gebäudeversicherungen (VKG), “Versicherung”, https://www.vkg.ch/de/versicherung/: “Der Interkantonale Rückversicherungsverband (IRV) springt bei Grossrisiken ein.” The page explains that the IRV covers losses that a single cantonal insurer cannot bear alone and buys reinsurance jointly for its members, and it describes the Interkantonale Risikogemeinschaft as a thirty-year-old pool for extreme natural events based on solidary risk-sharing among the participating cantonal insurers. ↩
8. Artemis, “Insurance Linked Securities Managers & Funds (ILS Fund Managers)”, directory entries for Euler ILS Partners Ltd (Zurich), LGT ILS Partners Ltd. (Pfäffikon), Plenum Investments Ltd. (Zurich), Solidum Partners AG (Zurich), Icosa Investments AG and Twelve Securis (Zurich and London), with reported assets, https://www.artemis.bm/ils-fund-managers/. ↩
9. Artemis, “LGT Capital Partners restructures insurance-linked securities (ILS) operations” (11 November 2014), on the acquisition of Clariden Leu’s ILS business in early 2012, the creation of LGT ILS Partners Ltd as a FINMA-regulated manager and assets of about USD 3.9 billion at the time, https://www.artemis.bm/news/lgt-capital-partners-restructures-insurance-linked-securities-ils-operations/. ↩
10. Artemis ILS Fund Managers Directory, “LGT ILS Partners Ltd.”, on its founding in May 2001, its LGT brand from June 2012, assets of USD 5.8 billion as of June 2024, its team in Switzerland and Bermuda and its constant-risk methodology, https://www.artemis.bm/ils-fund-managers/lgt-ils-partners-ltd/. ↩
11. Artemis, “Twelve Capital and Securis to merge, creating founder-led ILS manager with $7.8bn” (25 July 2024), on the founders, the leadership of the combined firm, its offices and the founding dates of Securis (2005) and Twelve Capital (2010), https://www.artemis.bm/news/twelve-capital-securis-merge-creating-founder-led-ils-manager-with-7-8bn/. ↩
12. Artemis ILS Fund Managers Directory, “Twelve Securis”, on its Zurich and London headquarters, the founding of Twelve Capital AG (July 2010) and Securis Investment Partners LLP (October 2005), ILS assets of USD 8 billion and firm-wide assets of USD 9.4 billion as of 30 June 2026, https://www.artemis.bm/ils-fund-managers/twelve-securis/. ↩
13. Artemis, “Schroders acquires full ownership of Secquaero, increases stake to 100%” (July 2019), on the 30 per cent stake of 2013, the 50.1 per cent stake of February 2016, completion on 18 July 2019, Dirk Lohmann’s role and assets of about USD 3 billion as of 30 June 2019, https://www.artemis.bm/news/schroders-acquires-full-ownership-of-secquaero-increases-stake-to-100/. ↩
14. UBS, media release “UBS to sell the Credit Suisse Insurance Linked Strategies Ltd business to its management team” (Zurich, 23 July 2024), on the sale of 100 per cent of the business to the management team led by Niklaus Hilti and its 21-year track record, https://www.ubs.com/global/en/media/display-page-ndp/en-20240723-csils.html. ↩
15. Moneyhouse, company record “Euler ILS Partners AG”, on its former names Credit Suisse Insurance Linked Strategies Ltd/AG, its seat at Tödistrasse 63 in Zurich and its purpose as a collective asset manager for insurance-linked strategies, https://www.moneyhouse.ch/en/company/euler-ils-partners-ag-13165092701. ↩
16. Artemis ILS Fund Managers Directory, “Plenum Investments Ltd.”, on its founding in November 2001, the launch of its ILS business in 2010, assets of USD 2.3 billion as of August 2026 and its catastrophe bond and insurance bond funds, https://www.artemis.bm/ils-fund-managers/plenum-investments-ltd/. ↩
17. Artemis, “Catastrophe bond issuance breaks Q4 and full year records, market grows 24%: Report” (2 January 2026), on 2025 issuance of USD 25.6 billion, the outstanding market of USD 61.3 billion at year-end and fifteen new sponsors, https://www.artemis.bm/news/catastrophe-bond-issuance-breaks-q4-and-full-year-records-market-grows-24-report/. ↩
18. Artemis, “Catastrophe bond market records that were broken in H1 2026” (6 July 2026), on H1 2026 issuance of nearly USD 18 billion, the record month of May 2026 and an outstanding market of USD 65.6 billion at 30 June 2026, https://www.artemis.bm/news/catastrophe-bond-market-records-that-were-broken-in-h1-2026/. ↩
19. Artemis, “Alternative / ILS reinsurance capital grew 18% to $136bn in 2025: Aon” (1 April 2026), on alternative capital of USD 136 billion, traditional capital growth of 8 per cent and global reinsurance capital of USD 785 billion at 31 December 2025, https://www.artemis.bm/news/alternative-ils-reinsurance-capital-grew-18-to-136bn-in-2025-aon/. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of September 2025.