ForestRe Limited

ForestRe Ltd. is a private company formed in 2004 and is based in London. Currently FRe collaborates with Orvia Underwriting Ltd Forestry unit. While Phil Cottle is Founder and MD of ForestRe, he is also Chairman of Orvia Forestry. ForestRe participates in European research and development projects into the nature of risk and design of tools for the modelling and mitigation of that risk. Much of this has been part of UK R&D programmes, or more recently the EU Horizon and ITEA Eureka Cluster programme.

International network

Over the last 25 years FRe has worked with a global network of brokers that generate forestry and agro-forestry risk transfer business. Enquiries come in from over 30 countries, and business is transacted in many of these countries. ForestRe has developed with academic institutions easy-to-use EO data platforms that help measure and map burn scar on forestry cover over 26 years for each client as they approach the insurance markets. Similar tools are being developed for mapping of historic wind damage on commercial forest enterprises. This requires highly localised risk mapping of specific land cover types and risk is assessed with knowledge of the daily management of the enterprises by their owners or local communities. 

Industry links and support

FRe collaborates with Orvia Forestry that has  reinsurance support from Liberty Mutual in Paris, as well as a Lloyd's 'Binder' supported by 4 Lloyd's Syndicates and led by Ark Syndicate since 2025. ForestRe has also worked with reinsurers across Europe such as SwissRe, HannoverRe, PartnerRe, Amlin, MunchichRe  QatarRe, Scor, EchoRe. 

The often-catastrophic nature of forestry losses, has persistently driven many of the world’s main reinsurers away from providing conventional indemnity forest insurance, As parametric insurance products are designed and promoted, ForestRe with Orvia Forestry unit is reversing this trend as risk pricing is based on independent data from verifiable Earth Observation sources. 

Forestry enterprises face risks in the areas of production, natural resources (primarily soil stability and quality and water quality and quantity), finance, marketing and price. To some extent insurance can contribute to the solutions to many of the risk areas. As the portfolio develops over the long term then additional multi-line risks can be accepted y separate underwriting teams i Orvia such as political and terrorism, Pubic liability and the credit risk associated with these forestry and forest carbon projects. 

Type

Small and Medium sized Enterprise

Country

United Kingdom

Website

https://forestre.com