Willis Re has appointed David Gregori as head of agriculture for Asia Pacific and has revealed the set-up of its agriculture team for the region.
Based in Hong Kong, Gregori will head up the Agriculture team, supporting clients and partners in developing insurance solutions to better protect farmers throughout the region.
The team will use a data-driven and analytical approach to provide customised solutions for its clients and related stakeholders in the agriculture industry, such as crops, livestock, fish farms, and forestry.
Before joining Willis Re, Gregori was head of global agriculture at Canopius, a Lloyd’s syndicate in Singapore, for over four years. Prior to this, he was an agriculture underwriter at Partner Re. He has been dealing with crop insurance for the last 12 years and was involved in the design of a subsidised crop insurance scheme in Morocco, which covers around one million hectares of farmland. He is also an expert in parametric insurance solutions.
As well as Gregori, Willis Re has announced two more appointments within its agriculture roster in India and China.
Dr Ajay Rakhe leads the agriculture business in India as vice president, treaty – agriculture. Based in Willis Re’s Mumbai office Dr Rakhe is responsible for developing and managing the agriculture treaty business along with designing other rural products for clients and partners in India.
Dr Rakhe has over 11 years’ experience in the general insurance business in India, ranging from in reinsurance, underwriting and claims, to managing government business. In his earlier roles, he also handled products such as crop & weather, livestock, health and personal accident. He was involved in the implementation of two major national insurance programmes in the Indian market – the PMFBY crop insurance scheme and RSBY health insurance scheme.
Simiao He, associate director of reinsurance, leads the agriculture business in China and is based in Willis Re’s Beijing office. She has a comprehensive knowledge of China’s agriculture (re)insurance market and a strong technical background in innovative index products. Before Willis Re, she spent five years at Swiss Re as an agriculture reinsurance underwriter and graduated from China Agricultural University.
Mark Morley, head of Willis Re in Asia-Pacific commented: “Asia faces extreme adverse weather events such as typhoons, large scale floods and drought,”
“These bring higher risk of yield shortfalls and failures which can impact farmers, companies and employment, especially with one out of three Asian people working in the agriculture industry. It is therefore important to use agriculture insurance as a tool to help farmers mitigate the financial and production risks, and protect their livelihood. The addition of David, Ajay, and Simiao to the agriculture team, and their international and local knowledge will enhance the value we provide to our clients and partners in the agriculture insurance market.”
