Aon attracts Swiss Re talent as global head of parametric

Global reinsurance broker  Aon has tapped a  Swiss Re senior structurer as leader of global parametric initiatives, overseeing a team of specialists in North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific, to accelerate the development of index-based solutions.

Cole Mayer (pictured) joins Aon as head of parametrics.

Reporting to Paul Schultz, chief executive officer of Aon Securities, Mayer will manage a global center of excellence for parametric products, coordinating their structuring and distribution across Aon’s solution lines and regions. He will lead a team of specialists in North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific to identify opportunities across Reinsurance Solutions and Commercial Risk Solutions, as well as Aon Securities, and deliver parametric products to clients while utilizing capital from associated markets.

Mayer will work across Risk Capital, one of two primary categories of client need, and which unifies Aon’s capabilities across Commercial Risk and Reinsurance Solutions to better enable the delivery of holistic capital solutions.

Mayer joins Aon from reinsurer Swiss Re, where he was most recently senior vice president and senior structurer within its Innovative Risk Solutions division. He previously held senior underwriting roles at the firm, and has gained CPCU and ARM industry qualifications.

Schultz said: “As a firm, we have long recognised that parametric products can be used not just by insurance and reinsurance companies, but also commercial organisations, especially those with extensive asset portfolios that are exposed to potential natural hazard events. With Cole leading our global parametric efforts, we are reinforcing our commitment to deliver additional capital to our clients across the firm at a time when many are facing capacity constraints in traditional markets when seeking coverage for their unique exposures.”

Andy Marcell, CEO of Risk Capital for Aon, said: “There is increasing demand from commercial risk and reinsurance clients for innovation around risk transfer, and so to continue to deliver client value Aon needs to be ever more coordinated in its global network and approach. Cole’s new role evidences our quick progress in this regard, enabling the more efficient delivery of parametric solutions through global collaborative initiatives.”

Parametric products have grown in popularity in recent years due to their ability to fill coverage gaps and provide organisations with a risk transfer option better aligned to the specific requirements of their operations. Parametric pay-outs are based on certified and measurable indexes, which might pertain to weather factors, including windspeed or rainfall, or commercial metrics such as hotel occupancy rates. Parametric triggers, which have long been a feature of insurance-linked securities, particularly catastrophe bonds, have become popular with cedents seeking to base their coverage on factors other than company or industry losses.

Lambros Lambrou, CEO of Human Capital and Commercial Risk Solutions for Aon, added: “Having a unified capability will enable us to offer an increasing range of robust parametric solutions to address a wide variety of exposures across the Risk and Human Capital spectrum. This area is heralding an evolution in risk transfer, and we are excited to see how it will develop through the efforts of our center of excellence for parametric products.”

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