Munich Re

A global coalition of 32 environmental, Indigenous, and citizen groups is calling on the companies listed on the insurance certificate for the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline to drop their policies ahead of the August 31 renewal deadline. Citing massive political and environmental risks from one of the most contentious projects in Canada’s history — the …

Insurance companies are taking unprecedented action against the coal industry, ending insurance for coal companies, mines and power plants and excluding coal from $6 trillion of investments, reveals the Insure Our Future campaign’s second annual scorecard on the industry. Momentum is growing as four of the world’s biggest insurers have announced new restrictions on coal …

At a time when every effort should be made to wean the world from fossil fuels, German company RWE announced that it intends to begin the clearance of the ancient forest of Hambach from 14 October 2018, in order to expand Europe’s largest open-pit mine, the Hambach lignite mine. This is an astonishing move considering …

A banner floated off the coast of Monaco, in front of the luxury hotel Fairmont where the major players of the reinsurance markets gather for a cocktail party at the 62nd Rendez-Vous de Septembre, a major industry event. It says “Reinsurers, Insure Our Future”. Swiss Re, Munich Re, Hannover Re, SCOR and Berkshire Hathaway are …

A handful of reinsurers have the power to hasten the phase-out of coal and play an important role in the fight against climate change but weak industry policies are undermining action taken by direct insurers, reveals a briefing from the Insure Our Future campaign released today to coincide with a major industry conference. A growing …

The Insure Our Future campaign, together with Urgewald and the social movement Avaaz, today welcomed the latest announcement by Munich Re CEO Joachim Wenning on his group’s future handling of coal. According to Wenning’s guest article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the world’s second largest reinsurer plans to stop offering insurance for new coal-fired power …

Yesterday, Handelsblatt published an interview with Munich RE’s CEO Joachim Wenning on climate change and its fatal effects. He showed again that he has perfectly understood the meaning of the Paris Agreement, explaining that by 2050 the carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels need to be reduced by 90 percent. Considering Munich Re has …

The Insure Our Future Campaign today welcomed Swiss Re’s decision to stop reinsuring businesses with more than 30% exposure to thermal coal and called on Munich Re to follow suit. Swiss Re was the world’s biggest reinsurer in 2016, with 15.7% of all non-life reinsurance premiums, and it is also one of the leading construction, property …

With AXA, Allianz and Zurich, some of the world’s biggest insurers have stopped or limited insuring coal projects. Smaller players often don’t have the expertise and financial strength to do the due diligence and insure the risks of billion-dollar coal mines and power plants on their own. They need back-up support from reinsurance companies to …

Close to half global reinsurance market divests from coal Close to half the global reinsurance market has now divested from coal after Hannover Re informed the Insure Our Future campaign and Urgewald that it has adopted an exclusion policy. Hannover Re has set a tight threshold, divesting from companies which depend on coal for more …

When I joined a meeting of Insure Our Future campaigners at the InterContinental Hotel in Paris the other day, a staff member of the Geneva Association, the think-tank of global insurance CEOs, stood at the door to our meeting room listening in. Caught in an awkward situation, she quickly excused herself and walked away. The …

Munich RE cautioned against climate change long before others. The reinsurer has raised the issue since the 1970s. “We are the ones warning,” reiterated CEO Joachim Wenning at Munich RE’s Annual General Meeting on 25 April 2018. He made clear that he understands what the Paris climate agreement means: That global carbon dioxide emissions need …