Hannover Re has developed an insurance product for businesses, municipalities and homeowners in cooperation with U.S.-based Energi. The financing of energy efficiency concepts can now be secured through the "Energy Savings Warranty Program.”
In a press release, Ulrich Wallin, CEO of Hannover Re, said, "It is our hope that this new insurance product will create incentives to invest more heavily in energy-saving technologies. In this way it can help to reduce energy consumption - and hence ultimately promote climate protection.”
The "Energy Savings Warranty Program" provides an insurance backstop for energy saving guarantees in the United States. Such guarantees are given by Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) that make energy-improving upgrades to buildings by, inter alia, enhancing insulation or optimising heating technology or air-conditioning systems. If the remediation fails to deliver the promised energy savings, the ESCOs undertake to make deficiency payments. In future, these can be covered under Energi's "Energy Savings Warranty Program.” International Insurance Company of Hannover Ltd., a U.K.-based subsidiary of Hannover Re, is the insurer of the policies.
Recently, Hannover Re and the GEM (News - Alert) (Global Earthquake Model) Foundation announced their partnership agreement. Hannover Re will contribute one million euro and technical expertise to the creation of the first global open-source earthquake risk model, which will provide a full spectrum of users with uniform information on seismic hazard, seismic risk and the socio-economic impacts of earthquakes.
Rui Pinho, secretary general of GEM Foundation, said: "All GEM actors involved have a common mission: to improve earthquake risk modeling and assessment significantly and provide both basic and expert users worldwide with access to state-of-the art tools and software, contributing also to risk mitigation and reduction. We are very pleased that Hannover Re has taken the decision of joining this initiative, contributing and adding impetus to the ongoing endeavour, which aims at the release of a first version of the open-source global seismic risk model by 2013."
Sujata Garud is a TMCnet freelancer with three years of writing/editing experience and two years of market research experience. As an editor she has covered the IT, electronics, banking, pharma, construction, mining and healthcare industries. To see more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Tammy Wolf
