Climate campaigners from the Stop Adani campaign and Pacific Climate Warriors will join forces October 27 and 28 to call on Lloyd’s of London and its members to follow the lead of 23 major insurance companies, including several Lloyd’s syndicates, and stop insuring Adani’s Carmichael coal project in Australia. If built, Adani’s Carmichael mine will, […]
By Peter Bosshard, Global Coordinator of Insure Our Future Aon, the world’s second-biggest insurance broker, argued in a recent report that “a rapid shift away from fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy sources” is needed. “If society does fail to take action,” the broker warned, “the final outcome may be catastrophic.” Writing this piece […]
Statement by the Insure Our Future campaign. Today, Tokyo-based MS&AD Insurance Group, one of the world’s top-10 insurers, released its position on underwriting coal power projects as part of its updated plan on sustainable business principles. Like its counterparts Tokio Marine and Sompo, MS&AD’s position is a misleading attempt to brand itself as sustainable. Yuki […]
Statement by the Insure Our Future campaign. Today, Japan’s Tokio Marine, one of the world’s top-10 coal insurers, published a position on coal as part of a climate strategy. Tokio Marine’s position follows on the heels of a statement Tokyo-based insurance company, Sompo, announced last week on limiting the underwriting of construction of new domestic […]
Statement by the Insure Our Future campaign Today, Sompo became the first Japanese insurance company to adopt a position on coal. According to the position, Sompo “will not insure and invest in new construction of coal-fired power plant in Japan, except for projects for which underwriting, investment and financing has already been expressed“. However, this […]
Climate finance experts have revealed the major loopholes in hundreds of financial institutions’ coal policies which they say could lead to the expansion of the coal industry and prevent the world from exiting coal on time if left unchecked. They also expose the banks, insurers, asset owners and asset managers with no restrictions on coal at all. […]
Lloyd’s Action Today, in an activity that marks the launch of a global campaign, Insure Our Future takes global climate concerns to Lloyd’s of London’s front door as it reopens its underwriting hall. As insurance professionals enter the building, campaigners welcome them with the message that Lloyd’s market must ‘wash its hands of coal and […]
In recent months insurance companies have rapidly abandoned the Adani Group’s Carmichael coal mine in Australia and the Trans Mountain tar sands oil pipeline in Canada when they were exposed by NGOs. The Trans Mountain pipeline, whose cover needs to be renewed by the end of August, has turned into a test case for insurers’ […]
Earlier this year, risk experts at the World Economic Forum identified the failure to address climate change as the most impactful – and sadly, the second-most likely – risk we face. It’s a risk the insurance industry must play its part in tackling. The sector itself may not emit a significant quantity of greenhouse gases. […]
Insurer Talanx has dropped support for Canada’s controversial Trans Mountain pipeline while Munich Re’s support is in doubt after it unveiled a new tar sands policy earlier this year, reveal emails to Canadian NGO Stand.earth. Subsidiaries of both companies were named on Trans Mountain’s current Certificate of Insurance, which lists 11 companies providing $508 million […]
The biggest future challenge the entire planet faces is climate change and the insurance industry is going to find itself on the frontline in the many coming battles to eliminate dependence on fossil fuels. As we escape from lockdown and the shadow of the pandemic recedes, the insurance sector is going to find reinvigorated and […]
Insurers must end all support for new oil and gas projects in order to meet international climate targets, NGOs supporting the Unfriend Coal / Insure Our Future campaign say in a letter to CEOs released today. They also released research revealing that four of the 15 biggest oil and gas insurers are companies that have […]
Documents leaked to the Sydney Morning Herald and seen by the Unfriend Coal campaign reveal that Liberty Mutual, HDI Global, XL Australia and Aspen Re are holding current policies for “early works project insurance” on the Adani Group’s Carmichael coal mine and rail network in Australia. The policies were brokered by Marsh. The proposed Carmichael coal […]
European insurers Lloyd’s, Zurich and Munich Re are the biggest supporters of Canada’s Trans Mountain pipeline, enabling a huge expansion of tar sands oil that would undermine international climate targets, the Unfriend Coal campaign reveals today. Trans Mountain is pressing ahead with plans to expand its pipeline connecting tar sands in Alberta to the Pacific […]
NGOs warn industry risks repeating mistakes made when it identified pandemic danger. Insurers must champion a green and fair recovery from the COVID-19 crisis because as professional risk managers they have a unique understanding of global threats, international NGOs supporting the Insure Our Future campaign say in a letter to industry associations released today. They […]
Keep up to date with the latest on coal, climate & insurance – Sign up to receive Insure Our Future News Alerts here. New York pension funds ask insurers to ditch coal On Friday 24th April, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer on behalf of the city’s pension funds called on AIG, Berkshire Hathaway and Liberty […]
By Peter Bosshard In 2013, 3,000 insurance executives were polled to identify the most serious extreme risks facing the industry. By a large margin, they identified the world’s greatest threat as “a new, highly infectious and fatal” pandemic. In case you were wondering, an “invasion of non-peace-seeking aliens” was ranked lowest among 57 different risk […]
Keep up to date with the latest on coal, climate & insurance – Sign up to receive Insure Our Future News Alerts here. Will Marsh drop the Adani contract? For more than a year Marsh, the world’s largest insurance broker, has tried to arrange insurance cover for the Adani Group’s giant Carmichael coal mine project […]
AIG CEO Brian Duperreault clearly hasn’t gotten the memo. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has demonstrated that we cannot afford to build any new coal projects and need to phase out existing capacity quickly if we want to have a fighting chance of achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. The UN Secretary General […]
The insurance industry’s shift away from coal, the biggest source of CO2 emissions, is accelerating. When we launched our 2019 coal insurance scorecard in early December, we were excited to see that since April 2017, 17 insurers had withdrawn from the coal sector. What used to be a European phenomenon had also ignited action among […]