Lloyd’s coverholder Kita names James Kench Head of Insurance – Reinsurance News

Carbon insurance specialist Kita has hired (re)insurance & climate risk executive James Kench as Head of Insurance following an oversubscribed £4m seed funding round led by Octopus Ventures, alongside existing investors Insurtech Gateway, Carbon13 and Climate VC, and new investors Chaucer Group and Hartree Partners.

In the new role, Kench is tasked with developing new insurance products, fostering partnerships with insurance partners and the carbon ecosystem, and enhancing Kita’s capacity and influence in the carbon market.

Kench holds almost 15 years of experience in global (re)insurance broking, climate risk and portfolio management.

He has previously served at global firms such as Marsh McLennan, Jardine Matheson and Mayer Brown, covering Europe, Asia and the Americas.

His collective background spans (re)insurance, law, finance, accounting, biology/chemistry and insurance product development.

Commenting on his new role, Kench said, “I’ve always been a big fan of hyper-specialist insurtech MGAs for their agility, innovation and ability to build deep specialist knowledge in their respective niche.

“So, I’m extremely excited to join Lloyd’s coverholder, Kita, to help do just that in the fascinating and emerging climatetech realm of carbon insurance.

“I look forward to working closely with our broker and capacity partners and the broader carbon ecosystem as we de-risk and enable more carbon removal projects worldwide.”

Natalia Dorfman, Kita CEO and co-founder added, “We are thrilled that an insurance industry professional of James’ stature is on the Kita team.

“James will use his extensive insurance industry experience to accelerate Kita’s carbon insurance product development, thus helping greenlight more investment into high-quality carbon removal projects.”

In January, global specialty re/insurance group Chaucer announced a partnership with Kita to insure the delivery risk of carbon sequestration projects.

Chaucer will also be providing lead underwriting capacity, with the following capacity to be provided by Munich Re Syndicate and RenaissanceRe.