When the volcano Raung on the Indonesian island Java erupted on 9 July 2015, a local tobacco producer had a huge problem: The ash fall destroyed the majority of the year's crop of high-quality wrapper leaves.

Unfortunately, this problem was followed by another one. The insurer rejected the claim and did not accept part of it until much later within the framework of a settlement. Our task: We needed to procure new coverage as quickly as possible while having a large claim on our hands. Because to finance the new seed to be sowed, proof of complete insurance coverage was required.

Before we could present the risk of insuring delicate tobacco leaves already on the fields to potentially interested specialised insurers, we collected extensive data. Based on a thorough analysis of the history of Raung, we found that an eruption of this magnitude is a rarity. Furthermore, we compiled polar plots with seasonal weather data – and we found out that the wind that had carried the ash to our client's field usually blew in an entirely different direction during the rather short period of growth of the tobacco plants (eight weeks). Both factors, the eruption probability and the wind direction, significantly reduced the probability of occurrence.

With this calculation, we were able to convince a major insurer to underwrite the remaining risk at a price that our client could afford.