"The initiative adopts the same approach as we have been following at Munich Re for many years: assessing the risks and contributing through innovative products towards curbing climate change by promoting new sustainable technologies," explained Dr. Torsten Jeworrek, the member of the Board of Management responsible for the company's global reinsurance business. "As climate change progresses, the insurance industry must reassess its exposure to risk, but, with the support of its expert knowledge, it is well-equipped to use this as a basis for developing new opportunities too. We see openings for substantial additional business in technologies like the booming sector of renewable energy and in the flexibility mechanisms outlined in the Kyoto Protocol."
Over the past 30 years, Munich Re has attached great importance to the analysis of climate change and its effects and to the general investigation of exposures caused by natural hazards. It was to this end that, in 1974, the company set up the department known today as Geo Risks Research.
Many leading companies in the international insurance industry were among the first to sign up to ClimateWise. The British market is of great significance to Munich Re, being the company's second-largest individual market for reinsurance business after the United States.