Hiscox Capital Partners, the division of Hiscox Re that encompasses insurance-linked securities (ILS) investments and quota-share partnerships, lifted its ILS assets under management (AUM) to $1.5 billion at January 1st 2026, as $330 million of inflows over the last year served to increase deployable capital for the unit.
In the Hiscox annual results this morning the company announced that inflows of new capital from investors to its insurance-linked securities funds and strategies outpaced returns of capital over the last year, helping to raise AUM.
A year ago, at January 1st 2025, the Hiscox ILS AUM stood at $1.4 billion, but at our last reporting after the third-quarter of 2025 the figure had declined to $1.3 billion after planned capital returns.
The final quarter of the year saw additional new capital raised from third-party investors, which has served to increase Hiscox Capital Partners’ ILS assets to $1.5 billion, which enabled the unit to deploy more capital at the key January 2026 reinsurance renewal season.
Hiscox reported that, “ILS assets under management were $1.5 billion at 1 January 2026 (1 January 2025: $1.4 billion) as the business attracted capital inflows of over $330 million from new and existing partners over the year, offsetting planned returns and increasing the level of deployable capital at the January renewals.”
The company further stated that it feels conditions are ripe for additional ILS inflows, saying, “The pipeline for further alternative capital inflows remains robust.”
ILS fee income was slightly down year-on-year, with Hiscox reporting that its third-party capital platform generated $109.4 million of fee income from its ILS investor and quota-share partnerships.
Encouragingly for the company this now marks the third consecutive year where third-party capital fee income exceeded the $100 million mark and Hiscox noted that the majority of these earnings come from fixed fees.
2025 into the key January 2026 renewal season marks a return to growth then for the Hiscox ILS strategies, leaving the company able to benefit from additional deployable capital at the January reinsurance renewal season.
Commenting on the January renewals, from the Hiscox Re reinsurance underwriting viewpoint, the company noted that, “Competition from both incumbent reinsurers and alternative capital resulted in rates reducing by 13% at the January 2026 renewals.”
But adding that, “Despite this, the portfolio remains rate adequate following significant rate increases since 2018.”
Aki Hussain, Group Chief Executive Officer of Hiscox commented, “In Hiscox Re, we have successfully captured the opportunities of the hard market, with net growth of 180% over the last five years, and three consecutive years of an undiscounted combined ratio in the 60s.
“The portfolio remains rate adequate and in 2026 we expect to maintain our net property catastrophe exposures at a similar level.
“Gross premium progression will be a function of the availability of third-party capital and growth in specialty lines.”
It’s also worth highlighting that Hiscox Re put a new technology platform to work at the renewals, to help in analysing and processing reinsurance underwriting opportunities.
“In Hiscox Re, we have rolled out a new digital workbench, enabling us to digitally ingest and process significantly more submissions at the January renewals and benefit from improved portfolio analysis, leading to more accurate risk and return assessments,” Hussain explained in his Chief Executive’s report.
Hiscox Capital Partners is just one of the specialist managers of catastrophe bond and ILS funds listed in our Insurance Linked Securities (ILS) Investment Managers & Funds Directory.
