Nephila signs up to offer pricing & capacity on weatherXchange

Nephila Climate, the weather and climate risk transfer focused unit of the largest asset manager in insurance and reinsurance linked investments, Nephila Capital, has signed up to provide indicative pricing through the Speedwell Weather run parametric weather risk transfer platform weatherXchange.

In providing the indicative pricing for parametric and index-based weather risk contracts, Nephila opens up its capacity to a broad range of potential risk transfer buyers, from corporates to government entities.

Speedwell launched its weatherXchange platform last year, as an online technology based weather trading platform enabling protection buyers and sellers to meet and transact parametric or index based weather risk transfer contracts.

The weatherXchange Instantaneous Indicative Pricing service helps to make the structuring process simpler for Protection Buyers and Broker-Advisors, offering immediate feedback on the potential costs of weather risk transfer structure, without the need to approach markets directly.

For markets such as Nephila Climate the Instantaneous Indicative Pricing makes their pricing directly accessible by potential protection buyers, increasing visibility of their offering and giving them an always-on presence on the weatherXchange platform. It alos reduces the workload and time required to close a weather transaction and the platform can also serve as an origination source for protection sellers, traditional insurance and reinsurance firm or ILS funds like Nephila.

“Since its launch in October 2017, Instantaneous Indicative Pricing has been extremely well received by both Hedgers and Broker-Advisors. We have had an excess of 3,000 individual price enquires having led to more than 10,000 indicative prices shown. Users are no longer in the dark when finding the right structure at the right price,” explained David Whitehead Co-CEO of weatherXchange.

“The addition of Nephila Climate to the platform continues to strengthen the importance of this service. Over time, Instantaneous Indicative Pricing will change the way the weather risk market operates. In the past price discovery was a slow process, now it is instantaneous. Nephila Climate is an entity with significant global outreach and risk capacity. Their ability to provide financial protection against physical weather and climate risk for clients of all sizes and industries will further strengthen the value of the weatherXchange Platform for all users,” Whitehead continued.

“Nephila Climate is pleased to offer Instantaneous Indicative Pricing of weather risk transfer products through weatherXchange,” added Dr. Richard Oduntan, CEO of Nephila Climate. “We hope that this helps risk holders such as corporates and governments to quickly determine the cost of transferring their unwanted risk.”

Nephila Climate joins other markets providing the indicative pricing, including: AXA Global Parametrics, a division of the international insurer; ILS fund manager Coriolis Capital Limited; MSI GuaranteedWeather a subsidiary of Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co., Ltd.; global reinsurance firm Munich Re; and Sompo Global Weather which is part of Sompo International.