More Funding for U.S.-Based Provider of Retained Climate Risk Reinsurance

Demex Group raised $5 million from a syndicate of existing and new investors the company says will address accumulating losses caused by secondary perils.

The managing general agent, which “operates at the intersection of climate, insurance, and technology,” last year brought to market what it calls Retained Climate Risk Reinsurance, a stop-loss risk transfer product that settles based upon Demex’s Proxy Claims Index.

RCR Re enables insurers to buy reinsurance for secondary peril risks that aggregate over time.

The fundraising was led by led by Blue Bear Capital, a venture and growth equity firm focused the climate challenges and a Demex partner since 2021.

“This additional investment empowers us to deliver new weather risk transfer capabilities to insurance companies that are facing escalating losses due to the increased frequency of non-catastrophic weather events,” Bill Clark, Demex CEO, said in a statement. “Severe convective storms (SCS) cause accumulated losses in midwestern states that exceed hurricane losses in coastal states. SCS loss accumulation increasingly causes earnings unpredictability, credit rating downgrades, and even insolvency for insurance companies.”

Demex Group is headquartered in Washington, D.C. Previous funding rounds were a Series A round for $9 million in 2021 that included Blue Bear, Anthemis, IA Capital Group and QBE. A 2020 angle/seed round for $4.2 million included Anthemis and IA Capital Group Inc. The company’s reported revenues were $6.1 million.

California Disclosure Bills

A dozen-plus major companies are calling for California lawmakers to finalize legislation to require companies to provide standardized and more consistent climate-related disclosures as legislators begin returning to business.

Two pieces of legislation await hearings and votes to beef up information about how companies are managing the financial risks and opportunities from climate change.

Senate Bill 253 would require all large public and private companies operating in the state to report greenhouse gas emissions across their operations and supply and value chains. Senate Bill 261 would require these companies to report on their climate-related financial risks.

The following companies sent a letter to lawmakers in support of SB 253: Microsoft, IKEA USA, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Patagonia, Adobe, Avocado Green Brands, Dignity Health, Grove Collaborative, REI Co-Op, Everlane, Eileen Fisher, Recology, Atlassian, and Seventh Generation. Companies signing a letter of support for SB 261 include: Microsoft, VF Corp., Patagonia, REI Co-Op, Sierra Nevada, Alter Eco, DSM North America, Seventh Generation, Grove Collaborative, Avocado Green Brands, Atlassian, and Everlane.

The bills also have the backing of sustainability advocate Ceres.

“The disclosure of corporate financial risks is a normal business function, which is why policymakers around the world are sensibly applying it to the considerable business and economic threats of climate change,” Alli Gold Roberts, senior director of state policy at Ceres, said in a statement. “Leading companies see the benefits of these policies, which help them attract investment, inform consumers, and measure their own progress toward their goals.”

Montana Climate Ruling

Montana’s oil and gas policies infringe on young people’s constitutional rights to a safe environment, a state judge ruled Monday.

The ruling hands a major victory to youth climate plaintiffs.

An adjustment to the Montana Energy Policy Act violates rights to a safe environment enshrined in Montana’s constitution, according to Judge Kathy Seeley of the Lewis and Clark County District Court in Helena, Mont. The act limits environmental factors that must be considered for project permitting.

“I think this is the strongest decision on climate change ever issued by any court,” Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, said told Bloomberg in an article on Insurance Journal.

Seeley issued declaratory relief, which will impact Montana’s policies by invalidating statutes that prohibit analysis and remedies based on global greenhouse gas emissions and impacts on the climate, according to Bloomberg.

The case, Held v. Montana, took more than a week in Lewis and Clark County District Court, with testimonies from the 16 youth plaintiffs, climate scientists and policy researchers.

Climate and Health

Extreme weather linked to climate change is harming the physical and mental health of Washington residents, according to a new report released on three large counties in the state.

The 2012-2022 Regional Climate and Health Monitoring Report provides information on 11 health indicators and includes population health data from the tri-county region: Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties. The indicators span six areas that climate change is believed to affect.

This is the third Regional Climate and Health Monitoring Report. The first report was released in 2019.

It describes how more recent data stacks up with past years, and it explores whether populations seeking care at emergency departments for heat-related and air-quality related morbidity differ significantly by age, race/ethnicity, or sex compared to all emergency department visits.

Takeaways from the report include:

During the summer of 2021, when the region experienced a record-setting heat dome event, 94 people died. In a typical year the region would expect one heat-related death.
Emergency room visits during the summer of 2021 more than doubled, a trend that continued in 2022 when there were 40% more visits than in past years.
Since 2014, 236 people in the region have lost their lives due to extreme weather events. Most people died due to extreme heat, but 84 of those people died because of exposure to extreme cold.
More people visit the emergency department for air quality-related respiratory illness than for any of the other health indicators in the report.

Researchers interviewed emergency responders working during the 2020 wildfires and the heat dome in 2021 to assess mental health impacts of climate change. The most prominent theme was a lack of mental health providers and services.

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Topics California Mergers & Acquisitions USA Reinsurance Washington Climate Change Montana

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