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Today, the shareholder advocacy organization Investors for Paris Compliance (I4PC) released a report outlining the role of Canada’s property and casualty insurance industry in encouraging fossil fuels while facing rising climate claims and passing along these costs to policyholders. The report Playing With Fire: Canadian Insurers and Fossil Fuels shows how the industry redistributes climate-related risks and …

There is a contradiction within Canada’s property and casualty (P&C) industry. By its own admission, climate change is threatening the industry’s business model with increased risk and rising claims, yet it is complicit in increasing this risk via its underwriting and investing in the fossil fuel industry.

The dangerous impacts of climate change – the flooding, droughts, extreme heat, tropical cyclones,  severe storms, erosion, water contamination and groundwater depletion  – are well known and witnessed daily in Bangladesh, my home, but one thing that’s less obvious is the role of the insurance industry in the crisis. Burning fossil fuels is the number …

Ahead of SOMPO’s AGM, a letter signed by 28 Environmental NGOs, including Rainforest Action Network and the Japan Center for a Sustainable Environment and Society, was delivered urging the company to cease underwriting and investing in a contentious LNG export terminal planned in Brownsville, Texas, United States, as well as in all oil, gas, and …

Japanese insurance major’s support for the controversial gas project draws protests at annual general meeting. TOKYO, JAPAN – JUNE 24, 2024 – Today, environmental NGOs including Rainforest Action Network and the Japan Center for a Sustainable Environment and Society gathered in front of SOMPO’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) to demand the Japanese insurance giant stop …

Insurers are facing the consequences of their decisions over the last half-century. Over the past month, the unfolding insurance crisis has captured headlines. The New York Times detailed how extreme weather events are stretching the insurance sector to its limits, testing the boundaries of what can and cannot be insured. Concurrently, The Guardian highlighted IPCC …

Vienna, 15 May 2024 – In response to Vienna Insurance Group’s updated sustainability rules:

New criteria falls short of aligning with 1.5°C San Francisco – In a SEC filing of “Additional Proxy Soliciting Materials” Chubb quietly updated its oil, gas, and conservation policies. RAN’s analysis, released ahead of Chubb’s Annual General Meeting Thursday, May 16th, has concluded that while the updates are a small improvement, the loopholes and narrow …

2023 was the hottest year on record, as well as the year in which we saw insurance companies abandon their customers most affected by climate risks. Climate change, mainly caused by the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas), is accompanied by ever more intense and frequent climatic disasters: forest fires, floods, drought, hurricanes, …

London, 15 April 2024 – A major investigation into the world’s 65 largest insurance companies from the responsible investment charity ShareAction, released 11 April 2024, shows that both people and planet face the triple whammy from insurance companies underwriting and investing in projects that are increasing global warming, damaging the natural environment and failing to …

Brussels, 12 April 2024 – A new report from Finance Watch outlines the steps that must be taken to ensure effective implementation of mandatory transition plans for insurance companies as tools to support transition and manage the related risks. It outlines the urgent need for supervised “prudential” transition plans, pointing to the financial instability that …

Today, as the insurance industry convenes for the first Global Sustainable Insurance Summit in Los Angeles, the 32 campaign groups of the Insure Our Future network have sent a letter to the world’s leading fossil fuel insurers, detailing how they can accelerate the transition to a clean and just energy economy. Demands in the letter …

On 26 June 2023, citizens and environmental NGOs gathered in front of the AGM venue of Tokio Marine Holdings; Japan’s biggest and one of the world’s top 10 oil and gas insurers.  #StopEACOP activists question Tokio Marine’s ethics  Risa Iizuka, a youth activist and Field Organizer at 350.org Japan, condemned the 1,400km-long  East African Crude …

The insurance sector is the Achilles’ heel of the fossil fuel industry  Without insurance, fossil fuel companies cannot operate and fossil fuel projects cannot be built or maintained.   This is why we, at Mothers Rise Up, a UK climate-parent group, focus our creative energy on the insurance sector, particularly on the world’s oldest, biggest and …

Written in collaboration with Reclaim Finance. Numerous insurers have quit the Net Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA) under pressure from climate denying politicians and officials in the United States. The insurance industry has for decades been aware of the causes and serious consequences of climate change and its business model is being shaken by repeated multi-billion …

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 …

This article first appeared on Environmental Finance. You can find the article here. The recent departures of Munich Re, Zurich and Hannover Re from the Net Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA) have created a lot of debate. Amidst all the noise it’s important to remember the following basic facts about net zero commitments. Munich Re has cited antitrust concerns as the reason …

In an open letter Paul Parker, recording clerk of Quakers in Britain, and Bainito Wamalwa, Africa section clerk of Friends World Committee for Consultation, asked for a meeting with the world’s leading insurance market to discuss its action on climate change. They urged Lloyd’s Chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown and Chief Executive John Neal, whose members insure a large …

Originally published in ESG Investor on February 9, 2023 Since activist short-seller Hindenburg Research accused the Adani Group of “pulling the largest con in corporate history” on 25 January, the value of the world’s biggest private developer of new coal has been in free fall. The exposure of Adani’s fraud sheds an embarrassing light on organisations – …

Leaders of some of the world’s biggest insurance companies including Lloyd’s of London, AIG, Swiss Re and Allianz, will find out if they have been naughty or nice when they receive a specially selected Christmas gift from the climate action group, Mothers Rise Up, today. The CEO’s of six insurance companies – Lloyd’s of London …

Global wind power capacity must grow eight- and solar capacity five-fold by 2030 so we can limit global warming to 1.5°C, the International Renewable Energy Agency has found. Scaling up the renewable energy sector is all the more urgent in order to replace Russian fossil fuels with wind and solar rather than new oil and …

As decision-makers converge in Egypt for the annual climate talks at COP, major new reports warn that we’re at risk of triggering irreversible tipping points in our Earth’s system without rapid and concerted action right now. This year has been a litany of climate disasters ravaging communities, while oil and gas companies are reaping tens …

As climate change spirals out of control, natural disasters are becoming more frequent and expensive. Munich Re, the world’s biggest reinsurance company, reports that natural disasters caused losses of $280 billion in 2021, up from $166 billion in 2019 and $210 billion in 2020. The insurance industry was created to manage risk, but under pressure …

On 30 September 2022, Tokio Marine, Japan’s biggest international insurer, updated its climate policy to rule out new underwriting and investment in tar sands mining and oil and gas explorations in the Arctic areas. While Insure our Future welcomes the company’s commitment to stop supporting some extreme fossil fuels projects, considering its presence in the …