Weather risk management and weather derivatives trading news

Canadian province Manitoba has established a task force to explore the use of catastrophe insurance solutions in light of a rise in adverse weather events negatively impacting its agricultural sector, according to a recently published report.

Specialist London headquartered insurance and reinsurance company Beazley has launched a new product for the Australian market called Weather Guard, which offers businesses a way to acquire protection against specific weather exposures.

Speedwell Weather, a provider of weather data, forecasts, analytics, software and consultancy to the weather risk management and derivatives market, has launched a new platform which it hopes will help facilitate weather hedging for energy industry players.

Renewable energy focused underwriting specialists, GCube Underwriting Ltd. (GCube), has launched a new weather risk transfer product for the wind and hydroelectric energy sectors, an area that increasingly reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) players seek to tap into.

Once again the discussion of exchange-traded weather risk management products for Indian farms, companies and insurers has come to the fore, but this time the plan is for a product to be launched after September of this year.

Speedwell Weather, a provider of weather data, analytics, forecasts, software and consultancy to the weather risk management and derivatives market, has appointed joint CEO’s as it seeks to further develop its business.

Nephila Capital has participated as a reinsurance capacity provider for the African Risk Capacity (ARC), underwriting its first parametric weather risk transfer contract to cover African drought risks through its Lloyd’s of London Syndicate 2357.

Swiss Re Corporate Solutions, a division of the global reinsurance firm, has provided Infigen Energy with a pioneering wind farm hedge, protecting it across areas of Southern Australia, New South Wales and Western Australia from low-wind weather cycles.

European Energy Exchange AG, the EEX, is planning to launch exchange traded wind power derivatives and futures as a response to the “energy turnaround” which sees renewables increasing their share of global energy production.

The Climate Insurance Fund, an initiative set up by German Development Bank KfW, aiming to improve access to and the use of weather and climate insurance in developing countries, has signed up BlueOrchard partnered with weather index insurance specialists CelsiusPro, to manage the fund.