Willis Re appoints APAC agriculture trio

Willis Re, the reinsurance division of Willis Towers Watson, has appointed David Gregori as head of agriculture for Asia Pacific and the set-up of its agriculture team for the region.

Based in Hong Kong, Gregori will lead the agriculture team, utilising the Willis Re regional and global network, and modelling teams, to support clients and partners in developing insurance solutions to better protect farmers throughout the region.

Using a data-driven and analytical approach, the dedicated team of global and local experts will provide customised solutions to address the diverse range of risks and business challenges faced by its clients and interconnected stakeholders in the agriculture industry, such as crops, livestock, fish farms and forestry.

Prior to Willis Re, Gregori spent more than four years as head of global agriculture at Canopius, a Lloyd’s syndicate in Singapore. Before that, he was an agriculture underwriter at Partner Re. Gregori has been dealing with crop insurance for the last 12 years and was involved in the design of a subsidised Moroccan Crop Insurance Scheme, covering approximately one million hectares of farms today. He is also a global expert in parametric insurance solutions, and is passionate about educating and improving the level of knowledge of agriculture (re)insurance throughout the industry.

In addition, the Willis Re Agriculture business in Asia Pacific has made two appointments in India and China:

Dr. Ajay Rakhe now leads the agriculture business in India as Vice President, Treaty – Agriculture. He is based in Willis Re’s Mumbai office and is responsible for developing and managing the Agriculture treaty business along with designing other rural products for clients and partners in India.

Simiao He, associate director of reinsurance, will lead 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, including weather index, satellite index and revenue insurance. Prior to Willis Re, Simiao spent five years at Swiss Re as an agriculture reinsurance underwriter and graduated from China Agricultural University.

Willis Re Asia Pacific head, Mark Morley, said: “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.”