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Not just Los Angeles
不僅是洛杉磯
Catastrophe bonds are failing to cover disaster damage.
巨災債券未能覆蓋災難損失。
The scenes of devastation in Los Angeles were just the latest in a recent barrage.
洛杉磯的滿目瘡痍只是近年來一連串災難事件中的最新一起。
Last year hurricanes in the Atlantic, earthquakes in Japan and flooding in Europe all carried huge financial and human costs.
去年，大西洋的颶風、日本的地震和歐洲的洪水都造成了巨大的財務和人員損失。
Indeed, 2024 is set to be the year with the third-biggest insured losses, adjusted for inflation, in more than four decades.
事實上，經通脹調整后，2024年將成為四十多年來承保損失第三大的年份。
Surely, then, it is a bad time to own catastrophe bonds?
那么現在肯定不是持有巨災債券的好時機？
These are securities that protect issuers, mostly insurers and governments, from severe losses in the event of a natural disaster by paying out when certain conditions are met.
巨災債券是保護發行人（主要是保險公司和政府）在發生自然災害時免受嚴重損失的證券，當滿足某些條件時（購買持有債券的人）支付（利息或部分本金）。
In fact, across the asset class, such bonds returned 20% and 18% in 2023 and 2024, respectively—the strongest two years in recent decades.
事實上，在整個資產類別中，此類債券在2023年和2024年的回報率分別為20%和18%，是近幾十年來收益最強勁的兩年。
Instead of paying up, bondholders have reaped vast profits.
債券持有人非但沒有進行支付，反而獲得了巨額利潤。
Issuance has boomed and the market has doubled in size over the past ten years. It is now worth $50bn.
在過去十年中，巨災債券的發行蓬勃發展，市場規模翻了一番。現在的市場價值是500億美元。
The gulf between the devastation and the rude returns available to bondholders is a stark demonstration of the limits of the asset class.
災難破壞和債券持有人可獲得的微薄回報之間的鴻溝，鮮明地展示了這一資產類別的局限性。
Yet sometimes buyers and sellers of catastrophe bonds are a match made in heaven.
但有時候巨災債券的買賣雙方又是天作之合。
Issuers hope to cover themselves against low-probability outcomes with costs that could overwhelm them.
巨災債券發行人希望為低概率事件給自己保險，這些事件帶來的損失可能是他們無法承受的。
Investors are hungry for assets that do not move in tandem with the rest of their portfolio.
投資者渴望買一些與自己的其他投資產品不同步變動的資產。
This opportunity has become only more attractive since 2022, when bonds and stocks fell together, whacking investors who believed they had diversified by buying both.
自2022年以來，這種機會變得更具吸引力，因為當時債券和股票同時下跌，那些認為自己同時購買了債券和股票、做到了投資多樣化的投資者備受打擊。
Viewed in such a light, catastrophe bonds are an example of financial markets at their very best.
從這個角度來看，巨災債券是金融市場處于最佳狀態的一個例子。
Part of the reason for the lack of recent payouts is the exacting terms on which bonds are frequently issued.
近兩年的巨災債券支付不足的部分原因是債券發行時的苛刻條款。
After Hurricane Beryl struck Jamaica in July, for example, the country’s GDP shrank by almost 3% in the third quarter of the year, driven by a 14% drop in agricultural output.
例如，在去年7月颶風貝麗爾襲擊牙買加后，牙買加的國內生產總值在2024年第三季度萎縮了近3%，因為農業產出下降了14%。
Despite this painful decline in economic activity, a catastrophe bond issued by the Jamaican government and the World Bank did not disburse funds.
盡管經濟活動出現了這種令人心痛的下降，但牙買加政府和世界銀行發行的巨災債券并未支付資金。
The bond had so-called parametric triggers—ones based on measurable environmental conditions.
該債券有“參數觸發機制”，即基于可衡量的環境條件的觸發機制。
In Jamaica’s case, the air pressure measured during the hurricane was a fraction higher than the maximum level allowed for the bond to pay out.
在牙買加的情況中，颶風期間測量到的氣壓比債券應支付的最高氣壓水平稍微高了一點（因此債券無法支付）。
When it comes to California’s wildfires, catastrophe bonds face a different and more fundamental challenge.
對于加利福尼亞的野火，巨災債券面臨著一個不同且更根本的挑戰。
Since the 1990s, when such bonds first emerged, the market has mainly protected issuers against “peak perils”, or the largest and most damaging events such as earthquakes and hurricanes.
自20世紀90年代此類債券首次出現以來，市場主要保護發行人免受“峰值危險”的影響，即地震和颶風等規模最大、最具破壞性的事件。
However, it is the more common “secondary perils”—a bucket including everything from the current wildfires to hail and thunderstorms—that have expanded to take up a much larger share of total insured losses owing to the impact of climate change.
然而，由于氣候變化，更為常見的“次級危險”已經在承保損失的總額中占據了更大的份額，次級危險包括從當前的野火到冰雹、雷暴等的一切災害。
Some 61% of the catastrophe-bond market still covers only losses from a single major event, according to Artemis, a data firm.
阿爾忒彌斯數據公司稱，大約61%的巨災債券市場仍然只覆蓋單一重大事件造成的損失。
The other 39% of bonds in the market disburse funds when costs rise above an annual threshold, meaning that numerous secondary perils can add up to produce a payout.
市場上另外39%的巨災債券在損失超過年度閾值時才支付資金，這意味著多個次級危險可以累積起來產生賠付。
On top of this, investors are now demanding enormous returns in exchange for protecting issuers against losses from secondary perils.
除此之外，投資者現在要求獲得巨額回報，作為保護發行人免受次級危險所造成損失的交換條件。
In the most extreme cases, spreads over the yield on Treasury bonds can be above 20 percentage points.
在最極端的情況下，巨災債券與國債收益率的利差可能會超過20個百分點。
This uncomfortably large premium reflects differences in how easily catastrophes can be modelled.
這種過高的溢價反映了在對災難進行建模的難易程度上存在差異。
No natural disaster is predictable, but some are more unpredictable than others.
沒有什么自然災害是可以預測的，但有些自然災害比其他自然災害更難以預測。
For instance, a handful of hurricanes typically arrive during a specific season.
例如，少數颶風通常會在特定季節到來。
Forecasters can rely on more than a century of meteorological data, and the technology to forecast the path and size of storms has improved in recent years.
預報員可以依據一個多世紀以來的氣象數據，近年來預測風暴路徑和規模的技術也有所改進。
By contrast, both insurers and investors find the challenge of modelling wildfires and thunderstorms, which arrive in the thousands and spread in an erratic manner, considerably more difficult.
相反，保險公司和投資者都發現，給野火和雷暴建模要困難得多，這些野火和雷暴數以千計，而且蔓延方式極不穩定。
Many regular buyers of catastrophe bonds now mostly stick to the peak perils.
許多經常買巨災債券的人現在大多堅持選擇峰值危險型債券。
It is hard to fault bondholders for their reluctance to offer reasonably priced protection against new and more unpredictable disasters.
債券持有人不愿意為新的、更不可預測的災難提供價格合理的保護，這是無可指摘的。
They do not owe the world their money, and in a market that is already capricious, they appear to be reaching a limit.
他們不欠世界什么錢，而在一個已經很反復無常的市場中，他們似乎正達到極限。
As losses from disasters grow ever larger, insurers and governments therefore face enormous losses with little to protect them.
由于災害造成的損失越來越大，保險公司和政府面臨巨大的損失，卻幾乎沒有什么可以保護他們。
In the absence of fresh financial innovation, it is likely to be the taxpayer who ends up on the hook.
在缺乏新的金融創新的情況下，最終可能是納稅人為此買單。
