Yokahu launches cat-risk.com: the first independent parametric exchange to transform disaster risk finance
Yokahu, a leading innovator in parametric insurance, today announced the launch of cat-risk.com, the first independent, many-to-many parametric exchange for the London re/insurance market. cat-risk.com seamlessly connects brokers, carriers, and data providers to streamline parametric insurance transactions, significantly reducing friction in the market and ensuring fast, transparent payouts when disasters strike.
Built to enhance rather than disrupt the existing London market ecosystem, cat-risk.com transforms a traditionally slow and fragmented process – cutting quote and bind times from days to mere minutes. The platform enables real-time risk assessment, pricing, and seamless capacity allocation, broadening the ability of parametric (re)insurance to play a vital role in climate resilience and disaster preparedness.
Uniquely, cat-risk.com allows for multiple carriers to co-insure risks placed on the platform based upon the individual risk appetites of the carriers. Yokahu, as a Coverholder, administers each carrier’s portfolio separately and discreetly before allocating capacity to the deal presented using BiPar principles in a manner that reflects the traditions of trading at Lloyd’s but in a digital context. This allows more risk carriers to enter the parametric climate resilience market with smaller initial lines and reduced portfolio volatility.
Not only reducing friction in transactions, the platform ensures that policyholders receive fast and transparent payouts by monitoring real time weather, automating policy triggering and instantly presenting claims for approval to carriers reducing claim payment times to as little as 48 hours.
At launch the platform is integrated with leading data providers such as ReAsk and is supported by multiple major capacity providers and top-tier brokers. Designed for growth, it currently supports extreme weather risks, including hurricanes, typhoons, and storms, with limits up to $5 million per transaction. Future expansion will include earthquake coverage and higher limits, and enhanced risk insights.
Tim McCosh, Founder & CEO of Yokahu, said:
“Parametric insurance has long been heralded as a solution for fast, reliable disaster payouts, but inefficiencies in placement have hindered adoption. With cat-risk.com, we are delivering on the promise of parametric insurance – removing barriers, improving accessibility, and ensuring resilience in the face of growing climate and disaster risks.”
Farid Tejani, Co-Founder of Yokahu, said:
“This is about evolution, not revolution. cat-risk.com enhances the existing parametric insurance ecosystem, making transactions smoother, data integration stronger, and payouts faster. We believe this will help unlock the full potential of parametric insurance for businesses, governments, and communities worldwide.”
Yokahu CFO, Carsten Wolheimer, said:
“cat-risk.com is an important step forward in combining financial markets expertise with innovative parametric risk transfer. By streamlining transactions and leveraging robust financial market principles, we are creating a more efficient, transparent, and scalable solution for disaster risk transfer, fully aligned with Yokahu’s vision for a digital insurance marketplace that delivers real impact.”