AXA’s specialist digital insurance and banking seed fund, AXA Seed Factory, has partnered with AXA Corporate Solutions and French climate and weather services firm Climpact-Metnext, to launch ClimateSecure, an insurance and weather-risk management platform.
The new start-up seeks to “provide tailor-made insurance and weather-risk management solutions to help its clients understand, mitigate and insure financial losses caused by weather anomalies,” explained AXA in a press release.ClimateSecure says it will “work hand-in-hand with our clients, meteorologists, financial experts and other brokers in order to build indexes that most accurately reflect our clients’ risk.”
AXA Corporate Solutions’ extensive and dedicated focus on insurance solutions for large corporations across the globe and its expertise in parametric weather insurance solutions, coupled with Climpact-Metnext’s broad international weather consulting service, is seen by those close to the venture as an equally complimentary partnership.
ClimateSecure notes that adverse weather affects roughly three-quarters of European businesses, while record hot and cold temperatures continue to happen more often, bringing floods and droughts, contributing to the fact that around 30% of European countries’ GDPs are weather-sensitive.
ClimateSecure also states that by the year 2100 the average temperature is expected to rise by 4 degrees Celsius, coupled with a predicted five-fold increase in extreme weather events over the next 40 years, such as severe droughts, flooding and hurricanes.
In response to this AXA, through its subsidiaries, has again turned its focus to weather-based insurance solutions, and with the help of a leading European weather service seeks to mitigate the impact to businesses from weather anomalies.
Artemis wrote yesterday that AXA CS had partnered with the World Bank in order to provide parametric weather-based insurance protection to the most vulnerable regions of the globe.
And now the firm are hoping to offer businesses small and large, the opportunity to affordably and comprehensively insure their businesses against the increasing severity and frequency of adverse weather events.
“As a matter of fact, even a slight increase in temperature or greater-than-average rainfall over a short period can have a direct and often drastic impact on companies’ financial performance,” explain the firms.
To highlight just how damaging to company revenues adverse weather can be, ClimateSecure offers some interesting figures, from several sectors.
For construction, in France alone during 2013 25% of on site work interruptions were because of bad weather, creating an average delay of up to 3 months for construction sites in the region.
Transportation companies also feel the financial impact of weather events, as inaccessible roads and the inability to fly planes causes stress on profits. In the first-quarter of 2014 a U.S. airline incurred losses of €200 million during the cold wave.
Beyond this, extreme weather events that bring unusual amounts of rainfall can seriously impact the leisure sector, as it’s estimated that rainy days can cause a 20% decline in theme park visits, for example.
Whether it be down to climate change or simply weather variability and exposure to its effects, it’s clear that businesses stand to benefit from comprehensive weather-based insurance protection against the world’s perils.
All of this is aided by the ever-expanding developments within space and computer technology, including high-resolution satellite imagery, and the ability to process far more granular and larger sets of data from rainfall, drought, air quality, ice surface and so on, creating the possibility for more accurate and affordab
via www.artemis.bm
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