Demex adds industry luminaries DeMartini, Speare-Cole, Weber to new Advisory Board

Having recently raised new funding to expand its offering, the Demex Group, a risk analytics and intelligence company that facilitates climate and catastrophe peril parametric stop-loss reinsurance protection, has announced a new Advisory Board with three well-know industry executives joining it.

Demex recently raised $10.25 million in new funding to help it respond to growing demand for its innovative products, a parametric reinsurance solution for losses caused by severe convective storms, including tornadoes, thunderstorms, hail and wind.

The Advisory Board has been formed to help guide the company’s growth of its parametric reinsurance solutions and the seasoned executives joining it are John DeMartini, Alastair Speare-Cole and Matthias Weber.

DeMartini was a Managing Director of Guy Carpenter and retired after 24 years at the company. He was a key players in the identification of the secondary perils reinsurance market opportunity that Demex now serves. DeMartini is on the boards of Farmers Mutual of Nebraska and Harford Mutual Insurance Group.

Speare-Cole has had a long career in senior positions in the reinsurance industry, including as a member of the Aon Benfield Executive Committee and as Chairman of Aon Benfield Securities. He was also the CEO of broker JLT Re, and the Chief Underwriting Officer and Director at Qatar Reinsurance Company. Spear-Cole has also served as a board Director at Transverse Insurance Group, Eaton Gate MGU, Fusion Specialty Ltd and Bridgewater Specialty Insurance.

Matthias Weber had worked for 25 years at Swiss Re, becoming its Group Chief Underwriting Officer and a member of the Executive Committee. He has also served as an advisor and board member at a number of early stage companies, including COVU, Glow, Next Insurance, Cyber Cube, kWh Analytics, and Ahoy! Insurance. Weber is also a partner at Mighty Capital, and an instructor at Stanford University Continuing Studies.

“To have reinsurance luminaries like Alastair, John, and Matthias join our Advisory Board speaks to the importance of what we’re doing, and the uniqueness of our offerings.. These three industry professionals know that severe convective storms represent the biggest weather-related challenge to the property insurance industry,” explained Bill Clark, CEO of Demex. “The number of insurance carriers being downgraded by ratings agencies, citing climate-related issues, is growing rapidly, and the Advisory Board’s expertise will help drive our development and delivery of viable solutions to help prevent this from happening.

“There have only been a few innovative solutions that have been viable in the risk transfer process and Demex’s RCR is one of them,” DeMartini said. “I began working with Demex in 2022 and invited them to participate in our regional company seminar. Since then, the need to address the risk of secondary perils, such as severe convective storms, has continued to grow with losses, climate change, inflation, and fluctuating reinsurance capacity all presenting challenges to insurers. Through the new advisory board, I’m pleased to now be part of the Demex journey.”

“The impact on insurance companies from the accumulation of secondary peril losses is exposing a fundamental flaw in the current structure of the reinsurance industry,” added Speare-Cole. “I am excited by this opportunity to work with a company that has found a solution to help address this, and, in doing so, provide more financial security to carriers.”

“Having retired from Swiss Re after 25 years, I am enjoying the opportunity to use my experience to assist Demex with their crucially important parametric solution to combat the challenge of severe convective storm losses. Demex is a special company, with impressive people and a valuable product,” Weber ventured.

With few parametric reinsurance solutions focused on the area of severe convective storms and other secondary perils, but those weather events creating significant challenges and losses in the insurance industry, the availability of efficient parametric risk transfer is seen as a significant opportunity by Demex.