AkinovA partners with Benchmark Labs
Benchmark Labs , a provider of asset-specific environmental forecasting solutions, and AkinovA an electronic marketplace for the transfer and trading of insurance risk, announced a partnership to better inform risk transfer decisions using in-situ forecasting technology to understand how micro-climates impact pricing mechanisms.
In this partnership, AkinovA and Benchmark Labs will work to reduce the risk that occurs as a result of discrepancies between the weather forecast from the nearest weather station and actual weather at the asset location. These discrepancies cause unsuitable payments to be made and lead to user dissatisfaction. The partnership will also aim to reduce the knowledge gap between the insurer and the client when it comes to environmental information, thus reducing adverse selection.
Benchmark Labs’ ability to provide tailored environmental forecasts will enable the development of better parametric insurance models by delivering historical, asset-specific data and probabilities, along with real-time, in-field observations. The information will be used to determine payouts through AkinovA’s electronic marketplace when certain environmental conditions are met.
“Benchmark Labs has developed a proprietary machine learning technology to provide specialized environmental forecasts leveraging state-of-the art numerical weather models and recent advances in machine learning, cloud computing and IoT technologies. Partnering with AkinovA and their neutral, regulated and digital-first marketplace to transfer and trade re/insurance risks allows us to make our asset-specific information available to a variety of users, and to test and develop novel products that benefit the insurance and re/insurance sector.” – Benchmark Labs Co-Founder and CEO Carlos Gaitan.
“Today’s series of climate threats require more precise technologies to increase capital allocation and boost climate resilience. Whether for indemnity or parametric insurance solutions, fast, accurate, cost effective, on-the-ground analytics and monitoring solutions are urgently needed. This enables brokers, MGAs, carriers, corporates and Insurance Linked Securities (ILS) investors in those climate resilience risk transfer products to price the risks they take on. The organisations seeking cover also benefit from more granular information: brokers, MGAs, risk carriers and other service providers on AkinovA are able to create new products to meet their clients’ needs, faster. With the addition of Benchmark Labs’ data and analytics offering, AkinovA’s clients and its ecosystem have access to an exciting new capability.” – Henri Winand, AkinovA’s Co-founder and CEO.
In the United States alone, extreme weather and climate disasters have total costs of more than $1.9 trillion USD since 1980. Last year registered the most costly disasters on record, at $102 billion in losses. 2021 is on track to be even worse. This partnership seeks to address such costly environmental risks by enabling the creation of new insurance products and better pricing mechanisms that reflect the reduction in uncertainty resulting from the accessibility of in-situ environmental measurements.
