Returns on catastrophe bonds are exceeding those on corporatedebt by the most in nine months as investors facing record-lowyields chase returns detached from economic performance.

The bonds, designed to protect insurers from payouts on naturaldisasters such as hurricanes, have gained 1 percent this month,compared with a loss of 0.9 percent for company debt, according tothe Swiss Re Cat Bond Total Return index and Bank of AmericaMerrill Lynch data. Returns on dollar-denominated cat bonds werehalf those of corporates in 2011 as an earthquake and nuclearaccident in Japan sparked record losses.

Issuance in the $15 billion market for catastrophe bonds isgrowing at the fastest pace in five years as investors seeksecurities that don't depend on payrolls growth in the U.S. or asolution to Europe's sovereign-debt crisis. An average yield ofabout 9 percentage points more than short-term lending ratescompares with 5.89 percentage points on junk bonds in the U.S.