US primary insurer Allstate added more protection to its per-occurrence Nationwide Excess Catastrophe Reinsurance Program, lifting the top of the tower a new high of $11.5 billion at its recent renewal, while also securing a new $1 billion aggregate excess reinsurance arrangement as well.
While the addition of a new aggregate reinsurance arrangement at the April reinsurance renewal signals improved market conditions that allowed the insurer to benefit from increased frequency protection for the coming year.
A year ago, Allstate lifted the top of its main occurrence Nationwide Excess Catastrophe Reinsurance Program to a new high of $9.5 billion, while it also increased its retention for that tower to $1 billion.
Then, at the mid-year renewal when it buys its Florida focused reinsurance protection, the insurer also added a new aggregate reinsurance cover for its US homeowners business covering events greater than $1 million to provide $325 million of placed aggregate limit, across a $500 million layer excess of a $3.5 billion retention.
That US Homeowners aggregate reinsurance arrangement only ran for a seven month duration, from June 1st 2025 through December 31st.
Now, at its April 1st 2026 renewal Allstate has seemingly found the reinsurance market sufficiently attractive to secure a much larger $1 billion aggregate excess reinsurance contract that covers all property and auto lines, including for Florida and runs through till the end of March 2027.
It’s worth noting that within this occurrence reinsurance sits meaningful catastrophe bond limit, given Allstate had recently sponsored its largest cat bond issuance ever, the $1.2 billion sponsorship of occurrence Sanders Re cat bonds from February this year.
In fact, Allstate has $3.2 billion of catastrophe bond coverage within its Nationwide, excluding Florida, occurrence catastrophe reinsurance tower, a meaningful proportion of the total $3.8 billion of cat bond coverage the insurer has, including its aggregate and Florida deals.
Those cat bonds have helped to fill out and raise the top of the Nationwide occurrence reinsurance tower for Allstate, so the capital markets are a significant contributor to Allstate securing its largest reinsurance renewal program ever.
You can read about all of Allstate’s catastrophe bonds by filtering our Deal Directory by sponsor.
Catastrophe bond coverage sits in the layers from $4.75 billion up to the top layer, alongside significant traditional reinsurance arrangements.
In the top later, from $6.75 billion upwards, most of the limits will drop-down as lower layer limits are eroded.
Below $4.75 billion the tower is made up of traditional reinsurance, with one contract within that also providing reinsurance on a by peril basis, the others being multi-peril.
Most of the Nationwide occurrence tower has limits running from April 1st through March 31st 2027, but some of it also runs till the end of May 2027, which perhaps shows Allstate trying to stagger renewals slightly for future years as its tower continues to grow.
Losses in the Nationwide occurrence tower will also inure to the benefit of Allstate’s aggregate reinsurance covers, with the insurer set to retain all the losses for US events below $1 billion subject to recovery from aggregate coverage and Allstate retaining $1 billion of loss plus reinstatement premium due for larger events. Allstate said, “Eligible losses above $1.00 billion are ceded to participating reinsurers, up to $11.50 billion, and is subject to recovery from Aggregate coverage.”
As we said, the company has added a new US aggregate excess catastrophe reinsurance arrangement (the far right tower), to cover U.S. property and auto lines, including the state of Florida.
This $1 billion of aggregate excess reinsurance limit covers events greater than $1 million with a per-event limit of $1 billion.
It attaches at a high $8.5 billion of losses, providing $1 billion of aggregate catastrophe reinsurance protection above that level and runs for the year from April 1st 2026.
It’s a far higher attachment than Allstate’s typical Nationwide aggregate cover that has in recent years been provided solely by catastrophe bonds, but the fact it covers losses of $1 million and greater means it will constantly be eroding the retention over the course of the twelve month term.
Allstate’s Nationwide aggregate reinsurance (the left of the two aggregate towers) remains with its $50 million event deductible and is again solely made up of in-force catastrophe bond coverage.
This reinsurance is provided by the $150 million Class B tranche of notes issued through the Sanders Re III Ltd. (Series 2023-1) catastrophe bond sponsorship.
The cat bond notes have been reset at April 1st to provide their $150 million of reinsurance after an attachment point of $4.78 billion, running across a share of losses to $5.28 billion for the insurer and cover losses across all US states except Florida.
On the cost of its reinsurance this year, Allstate said the total cost of its property catastrophe reinsurance programs, excluding reinstatement premiums, was $308 million and $257 million in the first quarter of 2026 and 2025, respectively.
While the cost is up, the coverage has increased meaningfully and the addition of the new aggregate excess arrangement provides significant frequency loss protection for Allstate over this year.
Allstate also said that the total cost of its catastrophe reinsurance program during 2025 was $1.23 billion.
Finally, from Allstate’s new disclosure, the insurer has already renewed its Kentucky earthquake excess-of-loss catastrophe reinsurance for the next year, securing $28 million excess of a $2 million retention that provides one-year of cover from June 1st 2026, similar to last year’s arrangement.
Allstate also renewed its Canada catastrophe reinsurance at January 1st 2026, to provide CAD 577 million of placed limits, subject to a CAD 100 million retention, which is again larger than the CAD 478 million this treaty was placed at for 2025.
Allstate is one of the most significant buyers of reinsurance in the United States and currently the largest cat bond sponsor as well. The company will be pleased with the expanded support it has been shown in 2026, allowing it to purchase the most Nationwide reinsurance protection it has secured in its history.
View details of every catastrophe bond ever sponsored by Allstate here.
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