CISAR 2023 has officially been and gone. Genillard & Co would like to express a big thank you to everyone, including our sponsor Liberty, who helped to make this event such a memorable success!
For the fourth time, Genillard & Co organised the annual symposium to discuss climate insurance solutions for agricultural risks with delegates from all over Europe, representing the (re)insurance industry, science as well as tech companies. After two challenging years, everyone was happy to meet again in person at the “green campus” of the University of Applied Sciences Weihenstephan in Freising.
The primary ambition of CISAR is to foster exchanges dealing with how reinsurers and insurers can provide relief and support to the agricultural industry in the form of risk transfer. This challenge is of great importance since climate change has brought about high damages in recent years and these are anticipated to increase further in the future. This development demands that the industry adapts and that innovative solutions be provided in the face of growing uncertainty.
In this year’s programme Genillard & Co were pleased to offer attending delegates six keynote addresses held by leading figures from both industry and science, covering a variety of highly significant topics:
Dr. Stephan Niemeyer presented the JRC’s research on how climate change is affecting Europe’s crop production while Dr. Stefanos Mystakidis shared Swiss Re’s approach of using crop growth models in climate risk assessment. Verisk’s Alex Gehrmann informed the audience about the progress being made to understand the PML in climate risk modeling. A further valuable contribution came from Munich Re’s Elisabete Michel who discussed the current developments of both traditional indemnity based and parametric insurance. Michael Haverty, partner at the Andersons Centre, shared his knowledge on driving forces behind current crop price inflation. Furthermore, Tamme van der Wal from Wageningen University and Research Centre spoke about the potential precision farming might hold for crop insurance.
Another highlight at CISAR 2023 came from the presentations of selected, state-of-the-art InsurTech solution companies. Dr. Johannes Sonnen from Agrirouter, Dr. Jonas Franke from Remote Sensing Solutions, Dr. Damian Bargies from CORAmaps as well as Marco Peyer from risktec offered the audience valuable insights into their innovative tools and services, all catering for the insurance industry regarding agriculture and climate change. There followed (re)insurer talks informing the audience about samples of their recently developed market solutions. Abdessamad El Angoudi from our sponsor Liberty, presented first on parametric wildfire insurance based on remote sensing. Lukas Linden from Allianz then described the details of their drought index insurance. Boris Rohde from Descartes explained their hail model, using the disastrous hail event in France in 2022 as an example. Finally, Roy Confino from the Lemonade Foundation further shared their experiences in providing index insurance to small-scale farmers in developing countries.
Genillard & Co’s Maria de Vries took the stage to present their Agriculture Risk Metrics (ARM), an SAAS platform for advanced risk analytics in agriculture and crop underwriting. The talk was co-presented with new business partner Q-Perior responsible for the further front-end development of ARM. Additional insights were provided by way of a ‘scientific intermezzo’ by professors Mario Njavro from the University of Zagreb and Paolo Sckokai from UNICATT.
Breakout sessions on both days allowed for intense discussions concerning current pertinent topics such as the advantages and disadvantages of parametric crop insurance products as opposed to indemnity-based solutions, or the necessary conditions for successful public-private partnership schemes.
Initial feedback has hailed CISAR 2023 as an invaluable event. The symposium has enabled wide-ranging learning encompassing the latest trends and challenges in crop insurance across both industry and research, and from both public and private stakeholder perspectives. Delegates have also emphasized their appreciation for the opportunity to exchange experiences and to network with people from diverse backgrounds and fields, whilst benefiting from the abundance of knowledge and expertise.
Thank you once again to everyone who joined us at CISAR 2023. We especially thank Prof. Dr. Schauberger from the University of Applied Sciences in Weihenstephan for hosting us and our sponsor Liberty! The Genillard & Co team look forward to welcoming you at CISAR 2024. Please contact us at cisar@genillard-co.eu for more information or if you are interested in contributing to next year’s programme.