The 'catastrophe bond' market is heading to a surprisingly healthy 2009

In an odd twist of logic, it's looking like a good year to be in the catastrophe business. The business of insuring against catastrophes, that is.

Industry insiders now expect that catastrophe bond activity will pass the $3 billion mark for 2009, which didn't really seem possible just did six months ago. Four more of these risk-transfer transactions are likely to be completed this month, Reuters reports, which would comfortably push the total to that mark. This comes after the market was bolstered by 2008 deals that were deferred to 2009 and a second quarter that was slower than usual.