Speedwell Weather adds more weather risk data to SuperPack product

Speedwell Weather, a provider of weather data, forecasts, analytics, consultancy and software to the weather risk management and derivatives market, has expanded the range of data available through its SuperPack product.

SuperPack® is a service for users of large volumes of weather data. The service continues to grow and Speedwell now reports that SuperPack subscribers have immediate access to over 15,000 weather stations world-wide and on-request access to its secondary archive of over 100,000 weather stations.

SuperPack is used by weather risk management and trading firms, insurance and reinsurance companies that provide capacity to the parametric or weather index-linked risk markets, as well as to companies involved in weather-exposed industries, such as energy and agriculture.

In weather risk management and provision of weather risk transfer capacity the quality of data used is critical. Speedwell runs in-depth quality control procedures on its ever-growing range of weather reference sites using automated data checks which are then always manually reviewed by its dedicated team.

The recent additions to SuperPack’s weather data collection include the addition of over 200 regional crop baskets and the expansion of Speedwell’s population weighted baskets, which now cover over 70 countries.

Data density has been increased across Europe, with the addition of over 1,000 new sites in Germany alone. Speedwell has expanded the range of hourly data availability for hundreds of sites in Australia and has also added a further 6,000 sites offering hourly temperature observations in the USA. Coverage across South America also continues to grow with recent additions to Speedwell’s data catalogue in Brazil, Argentina and Colombia.

With Speedwell SuperPack users have access to an unprecedented range of quality-controlled historical weather data and weather data feeds for a single annual fee, which makes managing access to weather data a simpler task for large organisations.

Weather risk management continues to be an interesting and sophisticated area of the re/insurance and ILS markets. A number of ILS managers and funds invest in weather-linked contracts, such as derivatives or customised weather-linked reinsurance contracts. Access to data and breadth of the data available is key for this market’s growth and Speedwell’s continued work in this area is important for helping providers of weather risk and reinsurance capacity to grow and diversify their portfolios.