Beazley has completed a new $300 million 144A cyber catastrophe bond, expanding its use of insurance-linked securities to transfer cyber risk to capital markets.
The transaction adds to the London-based specialist insurer’s existing cyber ILS program, which began with what it described as the market’s first cyber catastrophe bond in January 2023.
With the latest issuance, Beazley now has $670 million in cyber catastrophe bonds in place and more than $1 billion of cyber excess-of-loss protection, which the company says represents the market’s largest and most comprehensive cyber risk program.
The new deal, PoleStar Re Ltd 2026-1, was issued through a Bermuda-domiciled special purpose vehicle. The bond provides protection for remote probability catastrophic and systemic cyber incidents and, in a first for cyber cat bonds, is structured with three sub-layers over a three-year term running through the end of 2028.
“Investor interest in our cyber catastrophe bond issuance continues to be strong and this latest bond is evidence of our ability to drive sustained growth in the cyber ILS market,” said Paul Bantick (pictured above), chief underwriting officer at Beazley.
The transaction comes as catastrophe bonds occupy a larger share of the insurance-linked securities landscape. Moody’s has reported that alternative reinsurance capital reached about $121 billion as of June 30, 2025, with catastrophe bonds accounting for roughly 45% of that total and outstanding cat bonds at a record $56 billion.
Investor returns have also supported continued issuance across perils, which may help explain the demand Beazley is seeing for cyber risk paper. Aon Securities data shows cat bonds delivered a 14.1% return over the 12 months ending June 2025, with an average annualized 11.8% return on outstanding bonds.
The new bond also follows Beazley’s announcement in November that from 2026 it plans to move beyond cyber catastrophe bond issuance into securitization and transformation of cyber risks, backed by a dedicated ILS fund. The company has said this strategy will use its Bermuda platform as a base for building out cyber risk investment structures.
Beazley has been named as the Best Professional Liability Insurance Providers. Read more here.
