A hailstorm has no obligation to be interesting. It can arrive without a memorable name, dent a few roofs, and depart before the television crews unpack. For an insurance company, however, the unremarkable storm presents a remarkably persistent problem: somebody still has to pay. Repeat the experience across a portfolio, month after month, and a manageable expense becomes an unpleasant annual result.
- Demex targets accumulated storm losses that carriers retain.
- Its trigger uses a model tailored to the insurer’s own book.
- Brokers place the cover; reinsurers supply the money.
That is the territory occupied by The Demex Group. Insurance buys reinsurance to share its risks. Yet protection against a spectacular event and protection against a miserable sequence of ordinary events are different purchases. Demex’s proposition is that the second purchase deserves a model of its own. The distinction sounds technical. The consequences land in earnings, surplus and the insurer’s ability to keep writing policies.
01 The trouble beneath the threshold
Property-catastrophe treaties generally begin paying above an agreed attachment point. An insurer keeps the losses below it. Several separate storms can therefore do considerable collective damage without each unlocking the protection a carrier has bought. The insurance vocabulary calls hail, thunderstorms and related hazards “secondary perils.” It is a wonderfully reassuring phrase for something capable of repeatedly emptying a wallet.
Demex’s November 2025 commissioned survey helps explain the demand. Among APCIA respondents, 87% were at least somewhat concerned about future severe convective storm losses. These were survey respondents, rather than a census of insurers. Still, their priorities reveal the commercial opening: executives ranked these storms first for impact on annual earnings after reinsurance recoveries. A product can address a large risk and still leave the buyer’s most irritating expense exposed.
02 Your claims, your weather, your trigger
Demex combines a carrier’s claims history and exposure information with weather observations. Machine learning helps turn those inputs into a portfolio-specific modeled-loss index. The index underlies an aggregate reinsurance agreement: once accumulated modeled losses cross the attachment point, the carrier can draw on the contracted protection. The winter-product announcement describes this mechanism explicitly.
The crucial word is “modeled.” This is a parametric approach, using an agreed index to determine recoveries. It does not simply reimburse every invoice submitted by the insurer. Using the buyer’s own history aims to bring the index closer to that buyer’s actual experience than a broad industry measure would. A roof portfolio in one region need not behave like a national average.
The arrangement also gives the capital provider a defined risk to price. Demex supplies the analytical machinery and helps structure the transaction; brokers connect the parties, and reinsurers supply capacity. This is a business selling financial protection through existing insurance relationships. A clever forecast alone would leave the carrier holding precisely the same bill.
03 A broad idea finds a narrow buyer
Demex spun out of Munich Re in 2020. Edward Byrns and Stephen Bennett were its founding analytical and climate leaders. The early ambition encompassed businesses facing weather-sensitive revenues and operating costs. One wonderfully prosaic example was a property manager’s snow-removal budget: an unpredictable winter can turn a dull line item into an expensive surprise.
The launch financing brought $4.2 million from Anthemis and IA Capital. Munich Re and Nephila supplied early capacity relationships. A further $9 million Series A followed in 2021. Demex later concentrated on insurers’ accumulated secondary-peril losses, bringing Retained Climate Risk Reinsurance, or RCR Re, to market in 2023. Its current severe-convective-storm offering is presented as SCS Re.
The commercial evidence is more useful than the vocabulary. In September 2024, Demex reported $65 million of reinsurance bound in its first selling season and announced $10.25 million in Series A and previously closed SAFE financing. The $65 million represented protection arranged. Confusing it with Demex’s revenue would make the story richer and the accounting worse.
Cover purchased through six leading brokers, reported in December 2025. A coverage figure, not company revenue.
By December 2025, the company reported more than $140 million of purchased cover. Michael Anderson became CEO after four years as Chief Growth Officer; Bill Clark, who led the commercial launch, continued on the advisory board. Public customer material includes Branch and CFM Insurance. The audience ranges from regional mutuals to national property insurers, with a common interest in preserving their balance sheets.
04 Winter arrives in June
In June 2026, Demex added winter-storm protection. The new product addresses accumulated losses from unexpected storms, cold and snowfall, applying the carrier-specific index approach to another source of retained expense. Its launch in summer was a small piece of insurance good sense: the useful time to negotiate winter protection comes before winter makes its demands.
“The scale of insured losses and explicit demand from primary carriers made winter storms a natural target.”Matt Coleman / President, Reinsurance / June 2026
The winter launch also supplies a practical entrance. Demex offers a free, no-commitment review of a carrier’s winter loss data and a predicted-loss model. A buyer can examine the problem before choosing protection. The transferable business lesson is appealing: make the diagnosis accessible, then let the customer decide what the diagnosed risk is worth.
05 Read the index before buying the promise
That decision requires discipline. Modeled losses can diverge from actual claims, a mismatch known as basis risk. A changing portfolio or weak historical data can complicate calibration. An indemnity aggregate treaty may suit a buyer who prioritizes reimbursement of actual losses; a catastrophe treaty still has a separate role for large events. Demex belongs in the discussion about how those pieces fit together.
Its current winter-product page offers free model construction and quarterly settlement, with payment within 45 days of quarter-end. The sensible comparison includes premium, attachment, limits and index behavior across difficult historical years. There is no universal bargain hiding inside the word “parametric.” There is a specific contract, for a specific portfolio, against a specific accumulation of bad weather.