Cat bond spread in the primary market

: the main drivers

Abstract

Catastrophic (cat) bond is a very recent security, which enables insurance and reinsurance companies to transfer risk to the capital markets. In this study we aim to determine the main drivers of the cat bond spread at issuance. We gathered all the information on cat bonds from December 1996 to March 2015, the largest data sample to date with 589 cat bond tranches. We find evidence that (1) expected loss is the main driver of cat bond spread, and (2) that other factors such as peak territory, reinsurance cycle, corporate bonds spread and sponsor have also a great impact.

Date of Award	2015
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	José Faias (Supervisor)