india

India’s national reinsurance company, General Insurance Corporation of India or GIC Re for short, will look to catastrophe bonds as a potential source of risk capital and transfer as it seeks to provide cover for losses and access capital at cheaper rates, according to a report.

The reinsurance market in Asia has significant room for growth given the relatively low level of insurance penetration across the region, according to a report from Fitch Ratings. However risk awareness is increasing, demand for reinsurance from direct insurers in the region is growing and this will naturally lead to opportunities for the capital markets […]

Helped by the growth of microinsurance and weather-index insurance, India’s weather insurance market has been experiencing rapid growth in recent years. Now with more farmers starting to use weather insurance as a way to mitigate against the risks posed by extreme weather and climate change impacts two of India’s biggest players in weather insurance have […]

Skymet Weather Services, a provider of weather data and forecasts to various sectors in India, is planning to launch weather derivative indices on commodity exchanges such as India’s MCX and NCDEX according to a report in the Business Standard newspaper. Skymet are preparing the modelling and structure of weather derivative products in the hope that […]

The Indian financial markets have been pushing for regulation to be introduced that would allow for the use of commodity options and derivatives, including weather derivatives, has been under way for nearly two years now. We’ve written about this previously, here and here, with the latter article discussing moves by the Associated Chambers of Commerce […]

HDFC Ergo General Insurance in India have announced that they have made their first payments under their weather-index insurance programme due to heavy rainfall in the Dewas district of India. The index based weather microinsurance coverage was offered for this first time in 2011 to protect soybean farmers from heavy rainfall.

The burden placed on the governments of developing nations after natural disasters and other catastrophe events can be huge. Much of the developing world is particularly exposed to a wide range of natural catastrophes but insurance and reinsurance penetration is low meaning that the government can end up picking up the pieces.

We last wrote about the push to get weather derivatives listed as a tradable instrument on the commodity exchanges of India back in September last year when the Indian government approved laws to allow commodity options and futures to be traded in the country. It was hoped that the new law would lead to other […]

India’s Prime Minister, government officials and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) are meeting today to discuss current issues regarding disaster preparedness and risk transfer which could affect India’s population and economy.

Indian broadcaster Multi Screen Media who are responsible for televising the Indian Premier League cricket competition has taken out a weather insurance policy to cover against the chance of bad weather disrupting or cancelling league matches.