This year, two of the largest global reinsurers, Munich Re and Hannover Re, strengthened their climate policies by tightening restrictions on fossil gas investments and underwriting — welcome, if modest, progress towards net zero as climate-driven extreme weather continues driving record costs and devastating impacts. But under CEO Andreas Berger, the world’s biggest reinsurer Swiss Re has not yet made similar progress. Instead, a series of moves and statements from company leadership have raised concerns about the reinsurer’s direction on climate risk and the energy transition.
Swiss Re’s Climate Gymnastics
Swiss Re’s Sigma reports are seen as an industry gold standard in risk analysis — a position the company used as recently as two years ago to state that emissions reductions were “essential”. The latest report, however, makes virtually no mention of climate change, down from 99 times back in 2020.
Is it believable that Swiss Re’s analysis shows climate risk to have become less urgent of a problem in the last six years, during which Nat Cat insured losses have consistently surpassed $100 billion per year, a climate-driven insurability crisis is front page news, and scientists and actuaries jointly warn about the immense tail risks from climate tipping points?
The reinsurer has a history of action that backed up its climate risk analysis. It became the first reinsurer to announce a total exit from coal in 2021. The high water mark came with a policy on oil and gas in 2022 to cease providing (re)insurance or investment for new oil and gas fields. This also included a commitment that half of the company’s oil and gas premiums by 2025 will come from companies that are aligned with net zero 2050 “as per the SBTi or a comparable assessment”, and by 2030 the portfolio will contain only such companies. This portfolio transition announcement was and remains a strong market signal about climate risk, drawing a clear line in the sand on net zero alignment.
However, a closer look raises questions: the company no longer requires credible benchmarking for which oil and gas companies are aligned with net zero, at a time that most oil and gas majors are continuing expansion unaligned with net zero goals. In September 2025, Swiss Re announced it would pursue its sustainability goals without Science Based Targets initiative validation, a decision made under U.S. political pressure on financial-sector climate frameworks. While Swiss Re insists its net-zero ambition remains unchanged, abandoning third-party oversight increases the scrutiny on science alignment.
The company so far has not inspired confidence on that test. In its 2025 sustainability report and 2026 transition plan, Swiss Re asserts, using new criteria with no third party checks, that its share of gross written premiums in the oil and gas sector from companies with 2050 net zero targets increased from 53% in 2024 to 73% in 2025. If oil and gas companies pursuing rampant non-Paris-aligned expansion can meet the company’s new criteria without SBTi validation, this risks being a mere accounting trick rather than a credible sign of progress.
Muddled Messages From The Top?
The direction of travel under the previous CEO, Christian Mumenthaler, was clear — with multiple policies that clearly reduced fossil fuel exposure over time and an unambiguous public message where he called rising property insurance prices a de facto ‘carbon price’ on consumers in an interview to the Financial Times.
In contrast, however, his predecessor Mr. Berger’s public message is at odds with the company’s own research. In a March episode of the podcast “In Good Company” hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management (Swiss Re’s sixth largest shareholder), Berger described climate change as “one aspect that complicates things” about natural catastrophe losses while population growth was “the main aspect”. Tangen’s apparent surprise spoke volumes. Berger’s proposed framework for addressing losses — awareness, prevention, and risk financing — omitted the need to reduce emissions at the source.
Another concerning signal comes from Swiss Re Board member Karen Gavan, who recently warned against “starving” the oil and gas sector of financing, arguing that fossil fuel companies remain essential to funding decarbonisation technologies. In addition to being in poor taste as 45 million people could be pushed into a hunger crisis from ongoing oil and gas shocks, this framing also overlooks a crucial reality: continued support for fossil fuel expansion is itself one of the biggest obstacles to meaningful climate action.
Supporting An Honest Transition
Oil and gas majors still direct most investment toward new extraction rather than renewable energy. Carbon capture, meanwhile, continues to be used to justify prolonged fossil fuel dependence despite remaining expensive, limited in scale, and incapable of delivering emissions cuts at the pace scientists say is necessary. Gavan’s position therefore appears inconsistent with Swiss Re’s previous commitments to phase down support for oil and gas activities incompatible with net-zero pathways.
Insurers and banks are not passive observers of the transition. Their capital and underwriting decisions help shape which industries expand and which decline. Supporting the managed phase-down of existing fossil infrastructure is one thing; financing decades of fossil fuel lock-in incompatible with climate goals is another. Without stronger financial pressure, “pragmatism” risks becoming little more than a rationale for delay.
For the world’s fossil fuel importers — including Switzerland, delay is no longer an option since the Strait of Hormuz crisis. Oil and gas prices have skyrocketed, and the volatility has laid bare their unreliability. At the same time, the record drop in renewable energy and battery storage costs combined with the speed of their deployment has reinforced structural changes in the global energy transition. This is the time for a decisive, science-based stance to move away from fossil fuel expansion, where better, cheaper, and faster solutions exist for energy security, human health, and economic stability. In order to close gaps with science rather than widen it, Swiss Re needs to draw a red line against any form of oil & gas expansion, at the project and company levels.
LNG Gas Has Lost The Energy Race
Swiss Re’s peers are paving the way. Earlier this year, Munich Re, under its new CEO Christoph Jurecka, became the first major reinsurer to restrict underwriting of some new LNG terminals and pledged not to invest in any new gas infrastructure unless aligned with 1.5°C pathways. Hannover Re, whose previous CEO Jean-Jacques Henchoz now sits on Swiss Re’s board, has also committed to stop underwriting new greenfield oil and gas fields, and has recently confirmed that it will undertake similar modest LNG underwriting restrictions.
These policies remain limited and insufficient, but they reflect continuity in the direction of travel, and signal recognition of the financial and systemic risks tied to fossil gas expansion. By doing so, they advance incremental efforts in the energy transition during a period of intensifying climate impacts, energy insecurity, and affordability pressures.
The case for restricting LNG underwriting is straightforward. It is a material risk both to Swiss Re as well as its clients and investors. Methane leakage along the LNG supply chain can make new export infrastructure worse for the climate than the coal it nominally displaces. At the same time, solar paired with storage is becoming cheaper than new gas generation, while gas prices remain volatile and geopolitically exposed. Every new LNG export terminal represents a 30- to 40-year bet against an accelerating energy transition.
Swiss Re’s Path Forward: Net Zero Means No Oil & Gas Expansion
The path forward for Swiss Re is clear — consistent with its own historical data and direction of travel with its peers. To recover its image as a science-based company despite recent worrying signals, Swiss Re must:
- Demonstrate how the company’s existing policies to align its oil and gas portfolio to net zero meets a credible scientific pathway consistent with the Paris Agreement;
- Adopt a binding, group-wide policy to cease underwriting and investments for new and expanded fossil gas infrastructure worldwide, including LNG, the most emissions-intensive form of gas;
- Adopt a no-expansion standard across the entire oil and gas value chain, covering all brownfield expansion and associated infrastructure, thereby moving beyond the current insufficient focus on only “new fields”.
The climate crisis is not merely “one aspect that complicates things”. It is a systemic threat that demands consistent leadership from the world’s largest reinsurer.
