In this podcast episode, Bryan Falchuk talks to Yaron Ben-Zvi about his current role as COO at Oka, The Carbon Insurance Company.

Oka is de-risking the voluntary carbon market (VCM) for buyers and sellers of carbon credits with first-of-its-kind carbon credit insurance, which provides buyers with financial compensation in the event of credit reversal or invalidation.

Listen to the Episode

Watch the Episode

Highlights from the Show

• Yaron joined the show with the Life Insurance startup he founded, Haven

• After leaving Haven, he was looking for an opportunity in something that connected to his interest in dealing with the climate crisis, which lead him to Oka, which insures carbon offset and credit transactions

• Companies that use credits and offsets as part of their decarbonization strategy, the founding team at Oka realized there were a number of risks that make this difficult, with Oka focused on post-issuance risks, like

  • Reversal Risks – you buy carbon credit from a forest in Canada, but a wildfire burns that forest down. Or, illegal logging shrinks the forest. These are risks that could release the captured-carbon back into the air.

  • Invalidation Risks – the methodology behind the carbon credit was flawed, like fraud being committed in the actions that lead to the carbon sequestration

• Oka was only started in 2023, and today has their own syndicate at Lloyd’s, capacity from partners, and the technology to support it – with a team of seven people

  • The CEO, Chris Slater, comes from the industry, as do the board of directors, so there’s a lot of experience building insurance businesses

• The carbon market is split into two sub-markets

  • Voluntary Market – companies that are choosing to decarbonize

  • Involuntary Market – government or regulators force compliance with certain standards and timelines

• • Some buyers want protection if they’re newer to the market, or are doing something unproven

  • Some sellers who want to enhance the attractiveness of their carbon credits and to protect themselves from something going wrong that makes it hard for them to deliver or fulfill the credits they’ve sold

  • Both markets are growing rapidly out of necessity, and there are buyers and sellers that need protection

©The Future of Insurance Podcast– used with permission.