State Farm sponsored its recent record sized $1.55 billion visit to the catastrophe bond market using multiple Bermuda-based special purpose insurers (SPI), Artemis has now learned, with the Merna Re (Series 2025) issuance coming to market through longer-standing Merna Re II Ltd., as well as new Merna Re Companywide Ltd. and Merna Re Enterprise Ltd. entities.
At that time we had heard that all four series of cat bond notes issued had been done so using the Bermuda SPI vehicle that State Farm has used for every one of its catastrophe bond sponsorships since 2019, Merna Re II Ltd.
But we’ve now learned that the two recently registered in Bermuda SPI’s named Merna Re Companywide Ltd. and Merna Re Enterprise Ltd. we had previously reported on, had been used for this record sized visit to the catastrophe bond market as well.
As a result, for now given information remains limited in terms of transaction details, we’ve kept the four series of notes bundled under a single entry in our Deal Directory, as Merna Re 2025.
We may split the transactions out into a number of entries should further information come to light in due course.
The sizes of each series of notes are the same as we specified in our original article on this latest billion dollar plus catastrophe bond sponsorship, but the SPI’s used are different.
We now know that State Farm actually used the Merna Re II Ltd. structure for the first two of the series of cat bond notes that had been issued and settled yesterday:
- $200 million – Merna Re II Ltd. Series 2025-1
- $300 million – Merna Re II Ltd. Series 2025-2
Then, the US insurer used the two newly registered SPI’s for the other two series of notes:
- $500 million – Merna Re Companywide Ltd. Series 2025-3
- $550 million – Merna Re Enterprise Ltd. Series 2025-4
Issuance of all four series settled on May 21st and we still understand they cover a variety of US weather and catastrophe perils, including some providing peak peril coverage and some that include coverage for what may be termed secondary perils.
As we reported before, all four series provide State Farm with what we presume to be indemnity trigger based reinsurance protection across a roughly three year term to the end of June 2028, with maturity scheduled for July 7th 2028.
No further details on these new State Farm sponsored catastrophe bonds are available at this time, so check the Deal Directory entry and our article from yesterday for the other information we have learned so far.
As we said yesterday, with the completion of this record sized $1.55 billion issuance of new Merna Re catastrophe bonds, State Farm now occupies the top spot in our catastrophe bond sponsor leaderboard with $3.5 billion of cat bond protection outstanding.
This will reduce soon with $500 million of Merna Re cat bond coverage from issuances in 2022 set to mature in early July.
Find details about all of State Farm’s catastrophe bonds in the Artemis Deal Directory.
View more details on the $1.55 billion Merna Re (Series 2025) catastrophe bonds in the Artemis Deal Directory, where you can read about and analyse details of almost every cat bond ever issued.
