Insurance Unlocked: ILS in a softening market
Sustained ILS growth and rising appeal of sidecars as private capital reaches deeper into insurance risk
The insurance-linked securities (ILS) market keeps expanding, driven by strong investor demand, record catastrophe bond issuance and wider adoption by insurers and reinsurers. As reinsurance pricing softens, sponsors are deploying ILS more strategically alongside traditional cover to diversify capacity, lock in multi-year protection and optimize capital. Record sidecar formation in response to private capital’s demand for insurance risk. Yet abundant capital and rising inflows are compressing spreads and reshaping risk appetite - raising the question of where ILS investors can still find value.
Discussion topics include:
- Market conditions in a softening cycle - where pricing sits, drivers of record cat bond issuance, demand dynamics and key investor risks.
- The investor perspective - spread compression and where value remains, along with growing appetite for casualty and asset risk via Sidecars.
- Sponsor strategy and ILS as strategic capital - who's issuing and why, traditional reinsurance versus ILS trade-offs, and how ILS augments capacity for new risks.
- Modeling advances and new frontiers - catastrophe modeling breakthroughs, remaining uncertainties, and unlocking capacity for emerging risks like data centers.
Speakers
Brandan Holmes
Senior Vice President - Ratings
Moody's Ratings
Charlotte Acton, Ph.D.
Senior Director, Risk Advisory, Insurance Solutions
Moody's
Rom Aviv
Managing Director – Head of ILS
GAM Investments
Jordan Fisher
Vice President
Aon Securities Limited
Taijaun Talbot
Assistant Director
Bermuda Monetary Authority
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Brandan is a SVP-Ratings in the EMEA Insurance Team, with analytical responsibility for a range of (re)insurance ratings across the EMEA region.
Brandan joined Moody’s New York office in 2010, as an analyst responsible for a diverse portfolio of US insurance and reinsurance companies. Prior to joining Moody’s, he was Assured Guaranty Ltd., responsible for accounting policy and transaction advisory services. Brandan started his career with PricewaterhouseCoopers in South Africa, later transferring to the New York office where he was a manager in the Assurance practice, primarily responsible for the audits of life insurance companies. Brandan holds a Bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Pretoria and a MBA in finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business. He is a Chartered Accountant (SA) and a Certified Public Accountant (NY).
Dr. Charlotte Acton joined RMS in 2009 and leads the Risk Advisory function within
Moody’s Insurance Advisory, working with Moody’s clients across the (re)insurance,
financial, corporate and public sectors to apply catastrophe and climate analytics to risk
management and risk transfer use cases. This includes responsibility for the role that
Moody’s plays as modeling and calculation agent, both in the 144a catastrophe bond
market, including as provider of remodeling services through the Moody’s 144A deal
library, and in other forms of ILS and parametric insurance. Charlotte’s other focus
areas include the use of analytics in climate change risk assessment and resilience
finance.
Charlotte started her career with a focus on capital markets and has been involved in
parametric trigger design and modeling for 14 years, working across a range of perils
and use cases from storm surge risk to New York transportation infrastructure to rapid
financing for Philippines cities exposed to earthquake risk, to hedging mortality and
longevity risks.
Charlotte holds a masters in Natural Sciences and a PhD in seismology from the
University of Cambridge, including field study in India and China, and is a published
author in peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Rom Aviv has joined GAM in 2025 to lead its ILS business. From 2022 to 2025, Rom ran RHA Advisory, an advisory boutique serving top-tier clients and projects (e.g.Twelve Capital, Hannover Re, Toa Re) on ILS structuring, fund launches, parametric solutions, and bespoke risk transfer strategies.
At Acclym (2020–2021), he was MD and Head of Insurance, focusing on satellite-based tools for the agricultural insurance industry. From 2017 to 2019, he served as MD and Head of ILS at IBI, launching and managing an ILS fund investing in cat bonds, ILWs, sidecars, and private reinsurance.
At Twelve Capital (2012–2016), Rom was Executive Director and Head of Cat Bonds, managing $1bn in AUM, leading secondary trading, originating transactions, building the Dodeka private cat bond platform, and working on catastrophe risk modelling and portfolio optimisation. Earlier, he was a research associate at Risk Lab Switzerland and a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge. Rom holds a PhD in Financial Mathematics from ETH Zurich and MSc/BSc in Mathematics from Tel Aviv University (both cum laude).