The Let’s Talk About Planted Forests webinar will take place on 19 January 2024 at 1.30 pm CET.
This month, Let’s Talk About Planted Forests webinar will focus on Forest Risk and Insurance.
Global change is increasing and diversifying the risks that threaten European forests: drought, insects, fire, storms, hail, etc. In the case of planted forests, where an investor is betting on the future, the role of insurance in protecting against these risks is essential. However, we have observed that in some countries the level of risk is calling into question the principle of insuring forests, so it seemed appropriate to invite insurance experts to share their views on the future role of insurance in forests.
To discuss this subject, the IEFC invited 3 speakers. Here’s a quick overview of our speakers:
Guillaume Bouffard, MISSO GROUPAMA: « Recent bushfires in Australia and France : lessons learnt for an insurer specialising in Forest risks »
Phil Cottle, ForestRe Ltd. Protecting your forestry investment – Overview of climate, loss profiles, extremes & risk management
Peter Welten, Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd. : « The current forestry insurance market from a Reinsurance perspective »
Registrations are now closed (The replay will be available soon – access will be restricted to IEFC members)
SPEAKERS
Guillaume Bouffard - Managing Director
MISSO GROUPAMA
Phil Cottle - Managing Director
ForestRe Ltd.
Peter Welten - Senior Underwriter Agriculture
Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd.
Guillaume Bouffard, 48, is Managing Director of Groupama Forêts Assurances (GFA) since June 2023. Headquartered in Bordeaux (France), GFA is part of Groupama Group, a leading insurance group in France with over 6 million clients and 30 000 staff. GFA was established in 1947 and remains today the group entity that specialises in forest, insuring plantation forest owners against damages caused by fire and wind; it also offers civil liability coverage. Today, GFA insures hundreds of thousands hectares in France and operates throughout the entire French territory.
Before that, Guillaume spent most of his career abroad, in the financial and insurance sector. After completing studies in Economics and Finance, he worked as financial auditor within KPMG in several countries, and then specialised in the insurance sector (mainly life insurance) since 2005. Guillaume is also a plantation forest owner in the Bordeaux region.
Phil is the founder and Managing Director at ForestRe Ltd. formed in 2004.
Believing that forestry is the only at-scale solution to slowing climate change, ForestRe’s mission has always been to de-risk investment into all forms of forestry made by individuals, community forestation schemes, companies, institutions, and governments. His early career was in agricultural extension & training among peoples of the Pacific Islands, Central Africa and UK. Phil is a Masters graduate of Reading university.
ForestRe Ltd. performs consultancy globally on risk profiling and loss modelling for wind and fire being the two catastrophic perils across the sector. Experienced in assessing crop and forest risk for the insurance market over 25 years, ‘ForestRe’ price risk, model worst case scenarios (‘extreme’ events), and the impact on investment returns; design new insurance products and procedures for all tree-based enterprises, including for carbon and other ecosystem services.
Peter Welten joined Swiss Re in December 2000 and successfully completed the internal graduate’s program. During 6 years he was working as a Senior Casualty Underwriter for Global Clients. Since 2006 he is working in Swiss Re’s agriculture reinsurance team where he is responsible for several European markets. In his role as an agriculture market Underwriter he is working in a client facing role as well as assessing and analyzing agriculture business such as crop, livestock, bloodstock, aquaculture, greenhouses and forestry risks. He holds a Master’s degree in Forest Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH).
This event is co-organized by the IEFC, the IUFRO task force “Resilient Planted Forest Serving Society & Bioeconomy” and the EFI Research Network on Planted Forests
