Howden Re Inspire: Meet Antônio Jorge da Mota Rodrigues
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Be Inspired by: Antônio Jorge (“AJ”) da Mota Rodrigues, Head of Howden Re Brazil
As the world looks to COP30 in Belém, Brazil later this year, Antônio Jorge (“AJ”) da Mota Rodrigues, Head of Howden Re Brazil’s long-standing focus on climate resilience places him at the centre of a critical conversation. With nearly three decades of experience as a reinsurance broker, he has witnessed the transformation of Brazil’s (re)insurance market. What initially began as a closed market, has now opened to international reinsurance players in 2007. Looking ahead, AJ believes that the next big transition in the market is navigating the region’s growing exposure to climate risk.
Raising awareness remains the biggest challenge. “We need to help people understand that the next event isn’t a question of ‘if’, but ‘when’, and that reinsurance has a role to play in protecting lives and livelihoods,” AJ said.
"Climate has always been a subject that captivated my interest" he continued. “Long before it was a regular topic of discussion, I was reading scientific papers and following the data. I could see these patterns changing in Brazil - floods, landslides, droughts, bomb cyclones - and I kept thinking, this is something we need to be ready for, as an industry and as a population.”
That foresight has become essential. For decades, Brazil was considered low risk for major natural catastrophes, but AJ said that perception has changed. In recent years, the country has faced a growing number of climate-related disasters and resulting losses.
“In 2021, we saw a devastating drought that wiped out soybean crops across Brazil, one of the world’s largest soybean exporters,” AJ explained. “Loss ratios for some insurers reached 700%. It was the first time we experienced a market-wide insurance loss driven by climate.”
In May 2024, record-breaking floods submerged large areas of Rio Grande do Sul. The flooded zone was larger than the area affected by Hurricane Katrina in the U.S., but with less than 6% insurance penetration in Brazil, the economic loss was huge while the insured loss was relatively small. “The floods served as a wake-up call for the entire market,” AJ said.
Building Models in a Data-Poor Environment
“After the floods, reinsurers didn’t necessarily raise prices, they asked for better data,” AJ said. “They asked questions including: How much of a portfolio is in high-risk zones? What’s the geolocation of insured assets? Most insurers in Brazil couldn’t answer, because that data wasn’t being tracked. They had never needed to.”
He continued, “Now, we’re at an inflection point. There’s an urgent need for catastrophe models, but also for the data that makes those models useful. At Howden Re Brazil, we’ve been investing in both, to ensure that we have the right tools in place to effect meaningful change for our clients and the wider industry.”
AJ and his team are developing catastrophe models tailor-made for Brazil, not exclusively based on global frameworks. As part of this, he hired a meteorologist to join the team full time. They also produce quarterly climate reports, issue flash alerts for emerging weather systems, and provide localised insights tailored to the Brazilian insurance market.
“We are the only player in the market who does this currently,” AJ said. “Through building local models and working with the market players, we are raising awareness of the data required and how to best prepare portfolios to use those tools.”
Working Toward COP30 and Beyond
Belém, COP30’s host city, is deep in the Amazon, a region at the centre of both environmental degradation and the fight for climate action. Howden Re Brazil is working closely with Howden’s global Climate Risk and Resilience team to offer the team’s expertise and spotlight the role of (re)insurance in driving resilience.
AJ and his team are helping adapt and expand Howden’s global research to provide regional nuances and perspectives from the Brazilian market. “We’re localising reports and adding insights that are meaningful to the challenges and opportunities here and that can influence public and private stakeholders to act,” he said.
Howden Re Brazil also works closely with CNseg, the national insurance confederation, to increase awareness and improve insurance penetration. “This is also why COP30 is so important,” AJ said. “It puts resilience and insurance on the agenda at the highest level. But we need coordinated action across government, industry, and society to make a real change.”