Weather risk management and weather derivatives trading news

Interactive Brokers’ ForecastEx platform, which allows investors to buy ‘yes’ or ‘no’ contracts based on stated outcomes for specific indicators, is currently seeing temperature contracts as the most frequently traded on the platform, according to the firm’s founder and chairman Thomas Peterffy.

A number of specialty insurers are increasingly turning to parametric insurance solutions as an effective tool to help support clean energy deployment, particularly by stabilising revenues and improving access to project finance, according to Jason Kaminsky, CEO, kWh Analytics.

Abaxx Technologies, a start-up financial software and market infrastructure company, has launched the Enwex German Wind Futures on the Abaxx Exchange, which marks the introduction of a new suite of weather derivatives.

VivoPower, a sustainable energy solutions organisation, and KWeather, a climate risk management solutions company, have signed an exclusive heads of agreement deal that will see both firms collaborate to build the world’s first WeatherCoin, a weather derivative token for climate risk management.

Vaisala, a global company that specialises in measurement instruments and intelligence for climate action, has appointed Lukas Schönach from Descartes Underwriting as European Commercial Lead for Weather Risk Management.

Global reinsurance giant Munich Re has provided the capacity to support a parametric wind proxy hedge risk transfer product, structured using a solution from kWh Analytics, for a 79MW, wind project in Virginia, developed by Apex Clean Energy.

Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, a subsidiary of MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings, has unveiled its new parametric insurance product, “Weather Insurance Index”, a new offering designed to help insurers manage financial losses caused by severe or unusual weather.

Atrium, a specialty insurer at the Lloyd’s insurance and reinsurance marketplace, has entered into the weather and climate insurance market with the appointment of a new specialist team that’s set to be led by weather insurance veteran Dr Ed Byrns.

The National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) to develop India’s first parametric weather derivatives, according to a recent article from The Economic Times.

Aeolus Capital Management Ltd., the specialist insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance investment manager, has announced a new research collaboration with Cornell University’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, aimed at improving the modelling of hurricane tracks and assessing landfall risk with greater accuracy.