eWeatherRisk and The Andersons partner to grow weather risk transfer market

eWeatherRisk, a specialist provider of weather risk transfer and weather hedging solutions to U.S. companies, is to partner with The Andersons, a diversified agricultural business, to expand the weather risk management market in the U.S. and increase its volume of weather risk transfer solutions in North America.

The Andersons, an agricultural sector company but with diversified operations in grain, ethanol, and plant nutrient sectors, railcar leasing, turf and cob products, and consumer retailing, has acquired a significant interest in eWeatherRisk. With the investment eWeatherRisk will received support from The Andersons to expand both its online weather risk management and transfer platform as well as private weather risk transactions in agricultural and other weather sensitive markets.

With more than a third of the U.S. economy either directly or indirectly at risk from the weather the market opportunity for weather hedging instruments and solutions for end users is huge. eWeatherRisk will seek to expand its share of this market in weather impacted industries including energy, agriculture, construction, travel and leisure, retail and wholesale, and transportation.

eWeatherRisk.com’s online pricing platform provides U.S. companies that qualify with easy access to weather risk management products. Through this platform eWeatherRisk’s customers have the ability to easily manage their weather risk with customizable weather risk instruments.

Brian O’Hearne, CEO of eWeatherRisk, commented; “eWeatherRisk provides the next generation platform for weather risk management. Existing weather risk products do not offer the peril customization, geographic flexibility, limited basis risk, ease of use, automation and daily forecast adjusted prices that are available through eWeatherRisk. These features allow customers to explore the historical performance of a variety of potential risk management strategies, increasing the possibility that one or more will be appropriate. Clients make their purchases through eWeatherRisk’s distribution network and platform. We are excited to bring The Andersons vast experience in agriculture, transportation and risk management to this new relationship.”

Joe Needham, director of corporate business development and public policy for The Andersons, Inc. said; “With the increased value of agriculture, managing weather exposure is increasingly important across all aspects of agriculture, from producers to processors. This investment is a natural extension to The Andersons’ current suite of risk management products that we offer to our customers. It also provides us with early entry into an emerging technology that we believe can help the agriculture industry mitigate the impact of increasingly unpredictable weather patterns. We can provide a more robust offering to the same markets we serve today including production agriculture, food companies, processing plants, farm centers and other agribusinesses.”

The market for providing hedging mechanisms directly to weather sensitive businesses is established but has a lot of room for growth. eWeatherRisk will seek to position itself in a market-leading position with an expanded base created through this partnership.