Our best insurance is to keep fossil fuels in the ground

Insurance companies have a responsibility to immediately stop insuring fossil fuel expansion. Except for a few laggards, most insurers have stopped insuring new coal projects under pressure from the Insure Our Future campaign. However, contradicting their own climate commitments, most insurers continue to underwrite the expansion of the oil and gas industry.

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Number of companies with fossil fuel exclusion policies, by sector

Insurers, as society’s risk managers, should take responsibility to actively support global action to avoid climate breakdown, and drive the transition to a low-carbon economy. Without insurance most new fossil fuel projects cannot go ahead and existing ones must close.

 

Click here to view a detailed document on insurance company fossil fuel underwriting policies

Insurers need to stop supporting fossil fuel expansion

Insure Our Future calls on all insurers to immediately stop insuring new fossil fuel projects, and to phase out existing coal, oil and gas insurance in line with a 1.5°C pathway.

Prominent voices from the public and private sector agree:

Reducing exposure to Oil & Gas should be the next environmental objective for insurers… and could help unlock an additional ‘green premium’ for the sector.
Société Générale
There are no new oil and gas fields approved for development in our pathway [Net-Zero to 2050] and no new coal mines or mine extensions are required.
International Energy Agency's Net Zero by 2050 report, May 2021
We need net zero commitments to cover your underwriting portfolios, and this should include the underwriting of coal - and all fossil fuels.
Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, at the Insurance Development Forum
I encourage insurers to only underwrite those portfolios that are consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health. Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.
IPCC Sixth Assessment Report on Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability

We have 6 demands to the insurance industry:

1
Immediately cease insuring new and expanded coal, oil, and gas projects.
2
Phase out, in line with a credible 1.5ºC pathway, insurance for coal, oil and gas companies.
3
Divest all assets, including assets managed for third parties, from coal, oil, and gas companies that are not aligned with a 1.5ºC pathway.
Protesters holding a banner outside Vienna Insurance Group headquarters

42 environmental organisations across Central and Eastern Europe unite in denouncing Vienna Insurance Group’s lack of oil and gas policy and are making their voices heard at its AGM

Vienna, 26 May 2023 – Over 40 environmental organisations from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have united to publish an open letter [1] addressed to the CEO of Vienna Insurance Group (VIG), Ms. Elisabeth Stadler, expressing deep concern over the company’s lack of an oil and gas policy and its too laxed coal policy, and …

Insure Our Future’s response to the Net Zero Insurance Alliance exodus

What’s happening with the Net Zero Insurance Alliance  Today, French reinsurer SCOR, the world’s 7th biggest non-life reinsurance company left the Net Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA) while significantly strengthening its oil and gas restrictions at the same time. At its AGM, the reinsurer today announced that it would no longer underwrite the development of new …

SCOR AGM: French reinsurer to no longer cover new gas fields

Paris, 25 May 2023 – At its Annual General Meeting (AGM) today, the first for the new CEO Thierry Léger, SCOR announced that it will no longer cover new gas field development projects (1). Reclaim Finance welcomes these new climate commitments and calls on Thierry Léger to also exclude new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals …