As the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market moves into 2026, GC Securities aims to grow its business by expanding in catastrophe bonds, property sidecars, casualty ILS, multiline facilities, and surplus notes, while also putting a particular focus on artificial intelligence, senior leaders from the firm told Artemis in an interview.
For those unaware, GC Securities is the capital markets and insurance-linked securities (ILS) specialist unit of reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter.
Artemis spoke with Shiv Kumar, President, and Cory Anger, Managing Director of GC Securities in a recent interview, where they both explained what opportunities they see to grow their business into 2026 and beyond.
“We believe the cat bond market will continue its growth in 2026. Besides cat bonds, we expect to be active in property sidecars, casualty ILS, multiline facilities, surplus notes and other financing transactions for our clients,” explained Kumar.
“Additionally our Capital & Advisory practice is seeing tremendous volume in the M&A and capital raising space,” Kumar added.
Artificial intelligence is another key topic within ILS, with growing attention being seen in terms of how it can be applied more across the market.
According to Anger, Guy Carpenter and its parent, Marsh McLennan, are particularly focused on the technology as it continues to evolve.
“Guy Carpenter, and Marsh McLennan more broadly, are extremely focused on the space and have built proprietary digital and AI tools that we use for business purposes. We are just beginning to see how such technologies can be useful in the ILS space,” Anger explained.
“The challenging part of applying AI to ILS is the lack of standardization of the structures that are typically tailored to each sponsor. However, it is an exciting time to see how AI and broader digital initiatives can improve ILS structures and the transaction process,” she continued.
Moving forward, we asked the executives how GC Securities plans to differentiate itself and attract clients through the remainder of 2025.
“As advocates for our clients, we focus on executing efficient, scalable and replicable transactions that are robustly structured and competitively priced. This perspective requires us to constantly innovate – whether it is the first pure Canadian risk bond or the first French terrorism bond or the first funded net quota share structure in California,” Kumar told Artemis.
“In designing these transactions, we have to rely on deep quantitative modelling, work diligently on documentation and constructively incorporate feedback from investors. We are client-focused and product agnostic, which allows us to be highly integrated with our broking and analytics colleagues across Guy Carpenter in putting forward the best solutions for our clients.”
The discussion then turned to year-end renewal negotiations, where we asked the executives to outline the key topics ILS markets and alternative capital managers should prioritise in meetings with investors and cedents as the industry enters this busy period.
“The alternative capital market is very healthy and growing. At $114 billion, it forms approximately 18% of the estimated dedicated reinsurance capital of $649 billion. The cat bond sector has already achieved in 2025 the 4th record annual issuance in the past five years with additional new sponsors and larger transaction sizes,” Kumar said.
“Investors have had favourable loss experience and accumulated substantial retained earnings. Inflation continues to decline (though the ever changing tariffs and their impact are being closely monitored) and the retentions are still elevated. This makes the property catastrophe space an attractive play for new capital seeking diversification and yield.”
Kumar also highlighted growing sidecar activity in longer-tailed lines, where lower volatility allows for greater capital leverage and a more attractive asset mix. These structures give investors the opportunity to deploy capital for a longer term and more stable returns.
“From cedents perspective, the expanding footprint of ILS is welcome as it allows for broadening the panel of risk counterparties, provides negotiating leverage for achieving competitive pricing, and extends the weighted average duration of their overall reinsurance program,” Kumar continued.
To conclude, Anger addressed whether GC Securities expects discipline to hold on key contract features at the upcoming 1/1 renewals, and how competitive the market might become if catastrophe activity remains light in the second half of 2025
“Investors continue to be constructive on contract features. We saw modest return to dropdown features for Florida insurers, support for annual aggregate structures and increase wildfire risk taking. With recent model changes for wildfire and SCS, we can see increased opportunities for ILS investors,” Anger said.
Read all of our interviews with ILS market and reinsurance sector professionals here.
