Sciemus widens its scope into new risks including weather

Data and analytics company Sciemus is widening its remit into risks including natural resources, weather and technology, Rick Welsh, its chief executive, told Monte Carlo Today.

The company, which launched its own managing general agent in 2016, already operates in a number of niche markets including cyber, energy, marine, energy and space. Welsh said the company likes to operate in technically demanding and nice markets where it has been able to derive data (both proprietary and open source) and model that data to generate superior underwriting returns.

Now, Welsh is ready to expand its horizons further. “Historically, that meant modelling reliability and performance data in the space and energy industries, solar irradiance, wind and battery performance in renewables, but in future this will be expanded out to include natural resources, weather and technology,” he said.

“We believe that using our approach to modelling and data, we can outperform the market where we can use that to more accurately assess risk, rather than on a more experiential basis.”

Welsh added that he believes the biggest opportunities exist in areas of risk where innovation can potentially create a better product than the commoditised, traditional insurance products currently on offer.

“It’s for this reason we believe that weather risk, renewables, and technology risk/cyber (across all industries) represent potential for growth given that supply is not currently meeting demand,” he said.

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