agriculture

For just the third time since records began, a triple dip La Niña has been declared by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), with impacts including above-average rainfall anticipated for some regions of the world.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has declared La Niña conditions for the Pacific ocean, highlighting that the event could cause weather impacts in Australia and more widely, which has ramifications for insurance and reinsurance market interests.

AXIS Re, the global reinsurance division of speciality insurance and reinsurance firm AXIS Capital, has promoted senior property treaty underwriter Michael Leahey to the role of Head of Agriculture Reinsurance.

The current near-record El Niño event appears on the wane, with conditions attributed to the phenomenon said to be in decline, but its effects set to be felt for some time to come, with insurance and reinsurance firms now turning their heads to the possible development of La Niña conditions.

As the 2015/16 El Niño event intensifies there is an expectation that global economic losses from drought will surpass the previous forecasts of $8 billion, suggesting a growing toll for crop insurance, reinsurance and any ILS investors exposed to agricultural lines.

The China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) is encouraging insurers to trial methods to extend agricultural insurance cover to include greater protection against weather related insurance losses in the country. There has been a lot of discussion of the importance of food security recently and China, with its climate and huge population, is particularly exposed.

Liberty Syndicates Management Ltd., a member of the Liberty Mutual Group, has announced that it is to enter the weather and agricultural reinsurance markets after a new team of specialist underwriters were hired for that purpose.

Here are a couple of good reports that anyone interested in the development of agriculture risk insurance in these times of changing climates, commodity price fluctuation and weather risk management  should read. First, here is a article written by Thomas Heintz, chief agriculture underwriter at PartnerRe. The article looks at the way the market is […]