Insurers accelerated the shift away from coal, new study finds

Fossil fuel exclusions are effective but Lloyd’s and Zurich play questionable roles. Insurance companies which adopted coal restrictions significantly reduced the number of coal mines and the amount of coal which they insured in the United States, thus contributing to the shift away from coal. This is the main finding of a new working paper which …

The 2025 Insurance AGM Season: Continued Inaction on Climate

Many insurance companies across Europe and North America just wrapped up their annual shareholder meetings. Insure Our Future network organisations recently attended to assess how insurers are approaching climate risk and fossil fuels, as the climate crisis intensifies and threatens to undermine the insurance industry itself. What they witnessed was a bleak picture of continued …

18 global insurers and 10 banks have excluded the Alaska LNG from their support

18 global insurers and 10 banks have excluded the Alaska LNG from their support – Environmental NGOs urged Tokio Marine to comply its policy at the annual general meeting – Japan Center for a Sustainable Environment and Society (JACSES) Friends of the Earth Japan Mekong Watch Rainforest Action Network (RAN) Oil Change International First published …

Insurers’ exclusion policies contribute to mine closures, study finds

A new academic study by researchers at the University of Zurich and the Swiss Finance Institute provides the first systematic evidence on the effects of insurers’ carbon underwriting policies. The study finds that when major insurers wield their underwriting power to manage climate risks, this can have real consequences for the coal industry. Using data …

Open letter to new Lloyd’s of London CEO Patrick Tiernan calling for climate leadership

London, June 2 2025 – Reclaim Finance has published an open letter addressed to Patrick Tiernan, who begins his tenure as CEO of Lloyd’s of London on June 1st. The open letter calls on him to show real leadership on climate change in the face of spiralling climate risks, in particular by taking the first …

Insurers must manage climate risk, not worsen it

Insurers are not just takers of risk, they’re makers of risk. That’s the message I left the audience at a Financial Times industry panel event last week, joined by insurance leaders from Howden, Munich Re, and Risilience.  The panel sought to understand the impacts of the so-called insurability crisis, that is the withdrawal of major …

Tallgrass Institute report: Free, Prior and Informed Consent Due Diligence for Insurers

Tallgrass Institute Publishes FPIC Due Diligence Guide for Insurers

Within the insurance industry, there are multiple touchpoints with Indigenous Peoples. Insurance companies with policies that respect Indigenous Peoples’ right to self-determination and to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) may find more opportunity to partner in an expanding marketplace. There is also a growing recognition among insurance providers of the risks associated with failing …

Beautiful Architecture building cityscape with tower in Seoul city South Korea

Insured for profit, not for protection? Korean insurers face scrutiny over fossil fuel investments and disaster coverage

Seoul, April 29 2025 – Originally posted by Solutions For Our Climate here – Consumers Korea, with the help of Solutions for Our Climate (SFOC), is calling on regulators to examine the role of insurance companies in both worsening the climate crisis and denying compensation for its consequences. On April 29, Consumers Korea submitted a …

Strong shareholder vote sends Fairfax a clear message on climate risk

The Fairfax AGM was last week where our proposal asking the company to disclose its financed emissions was voted on. The company has now released the voting results, unfortunately not breaking out the numbers by shares controlled by the CEO vs. those voted by other shareholders, but we can calculate those numbers based on turnout. The result: a …

Climate change: senior insurance leader warns of economic collapse

Zurich, 31 March 2025 – Why are all his peers remaining silent? Managing the risks of natural disasters, insurers are well aware of the fundamental risks which climate change poses to the global financial system and society. Munich Re first predicted growing climate risks in 1973, and the then CEO of AXA famously warned in …

Swiss insurance companies under the climate microscope

Zurich, 27 March 2025 – New report from Campax reveals none of Switzerland’s eight largest property and liability insurers have climate policies that are compatible with the goals of the Paris Agreement. This in-depth look at the Swiss insurance landscape suggests smaller regional companies tend to perform less well than international heavyweights. Generali leads the …

Insurance gap in the age of climate crisis: New report spotlights Vienna Insurance Group’s alarming lack of effective climate policies

Prague, 11 March 2025 – As the impacts of climate crisis intensify, the role of the insurance business in either mitigating or deepening the crisis cannot be ignored. A new report The Insurance Gap in the Age of Climate Crisis: Ranking the Major Insurers in Central and Eastern Europe by the Czech NGO Re-set focuses …

World’s largest reinsurer announces major new oil and gas policy

Today, Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer, has taken a major step away from oil and gas. Munich Re has committed that as of 1 April 2023 it will no longer invest in or insure contracts/projects exclusively covering the planning, financing, construction or operation of new oil and gas fields, new midstream oil infrastructure and …

Exposed: Insurers of Ichthys LNG – one of world’s biggest gas projects

Will major insurers rule out support for Ichthys LNG’s expansion? One month before COP27, Reclaim Finance calls on global insurers not to renew insurance coverage to Ichthys LNG, one of the most carbon-intensive liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects in Australia whose promoters TotalEnergies and Inpex (1) are currently planning its climate-wrecking expansion. Based on rare …

Mums climate action at England-India cricket match: Chair of Lords & Lloyd’s told ‘fossil fuels are just not cricket’

A group of mums unfurled a huge banner at today’s England – India cricket match challenging Bruce Carnegie-Brown, Chair of Marylebone Cricket Club and Lloyd’s of London – one the world’s biggest insurers of fossil fuels – to take ambitious climate action. The 9 metre banner – with the message ‘Bruce: Fossil Fuels are just …

#StopEACOP response to media reports claiming that EACOP is fully insured

Recent media reports in The Independent and Nile Post suggest that the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) has been fully insured and reinsured with local firms through the Insurance Consortium for Oil and Gas in Uganda (ICOG). The #StopEACOP campaign believes this information is misleading—numerous official documents indicate (and standard practice in the industry …

Top German (re)insurer Talanx passes on EACOP

Talanx, Germany’s third largest insurer, is the latest (re)insurance company to confirm to the #StopEACOP Coalition that they will not (re)insure the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). They join 11 other (re)insurers, including 4 of the world’s biggest (re)insurance companies – Munich Re, Swiss Re, Hannover Re, and SCOR. Talanx follows fast in the …

Three more insurers rule out the East African Crude Oil Pipeline

Insurance providers Argo Group and Axis Capital, both Lloyd’s of London members, and RSA Insurance Group Limited, a leading UK insurer, have informed the #StopEACOP coalition that they will not be involved in underwriting the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project. The decision by the three firms brings the total number of (re)insurers who …

South Korea’s largest general insurers fail to cut ties with coal, again

Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance and Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance will not phase out existing underwriting of insurance for coal-powered projects, despite financial and climate concerns, according to their latest ESG reports. South Korea’s largest general insurers Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance (Samsung FMI) and Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance (Hyundai MFI) announced it …

Investing in climate chaos

American International Group (AIG), Berkshire Hathaway, Travelers, and Chubb are among the ten insurers that collectively invested over $59.7 billion in fossil fuels in 2019, finds an analysis released today by Insure Our Future, Public Citizen, and Rainforest Action Network. The report analyses 2019 data released in April 2022 by the California Department of Insurance to …

Sompo becomes first Asian insurer to rule out coal companies

Sompo joins NZIA, but must meet new Race to Zero Criteria Today, a day after its Annual General Meeting, Sompo, one of the top three Japanese non-life insurers, became the first Asian insurer to rule out insurance and investment in coal companies and companies involved in energy exploitation in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Sompo …

Going Beyond Insurers’ Voluntary Initiatives

Risk management is at the heart of insurers’ business. Yet we find that insurers are still not adequately considering – and are in fact actively compounding – the greatest risk humanity faces today: climate change and its irreversible consequences. This briefing compares insurers’ words with their actions. It shows that even members of voluntary initiatives, …

MAPFRE’s climate commitments: progress and weaknesses

In March 2022, Mapfre, one of Europe’s largest insurers and the largest non-life insurer in Latin America, published its renewed environmental commitments during its Annual General Meeting. The International Institute for Law and Environment (IIDMA), which analysed in 2021 the Group’s activities as part of a broader study on the insurance sector’s relationship with climate change, has reviewed …

Mothers create song and dance extravaganza outside Lloyd’s of London to urge the insurer to stop harming children’s futures

Mothers created a song and dance extravaganza outside Lloyd’s of London HQ today (Monday 13 June 2022) to urge the insurance giant to stop jeopardising children’s futures by underwriting damaging fossil fuel projects. It was a protest like no other, with Mary Poppins meeting climate action. The action comes just a few weeks after a …

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