AkinovA, the electronic marketplace for the transfer and trading of re/insurance risk, has announced that it has donated key insurance-linked security (ILS) assets to ACORD, the global standards-setting body for the re/insurance industry.
The collaboration will mean that AkinovA’s assets will be available to ACORD members as part of the ACORD Data Standards and Architecture.
Donated assets include data definitions and collection mechanisms related to cyber and catastrophe risk transfer for the re/insurance marketplace, as well as sample contracts and policies, which will help to guide the development of ACORD’s Global Reinsurance and Large Commercial Standards.
AkinovA said it developed these assets as part of its overall mission to grow the size of the re/insurance market by enabling new participants to enter, helping existing players to transact more business, and creating a secondary market for the re-trading of risks.
“In the global insurance ecosystem, standardized data exchange is, and will continue to be, a key enabler of material growth across all lines of business,” said ACORD President and CEO Bill Pieroni.
“We were impressed to see that AkinovA truly understands that standards are key to support sustainable, profitable growth,” he added.
“Their efforts to enable a secondary market to trade risk, and to handle more dynamic emerging lines – such as cyber- and climate-related risk – will benefit our members and the clients they serve.”
Henri Winand, Co-founder and CEO at AkinovA, also commented: “While the industry will always have a need to support bespoke contracts, we can also encourage the use of standard protection instruments by making them more accessible and cost-efficient.”
“As a trusted, non-threatening, third-party infrastructure provider to all those who wish to use it, we have been able to rapidly iterate and integrate feedback from a range of competitors happy to share information with us.”
Winand continued: “AkinovA invested significant time and legal effort to integrate content and feedback from members of its growing network. This included working closely with members of AkinovA’s unique Ecosystem of Founding Partners programme, members of its Advisory Board, Industry Advisory Board and broader industry support from brokers, re/insurers, actuaries and law firms.”
“Over time, AkinovA expects this library of standard protection instruments to grow to other lines of business across the insurance linked securities market and beyond,” he said. “This is the start of an exciting journey.”
