Are your insurance dollars funding climate destruction?
Insurers collect trillions of dollars in premiums each year. They earn most of their money by investing your premiums, taking in more than they pay out in claims. As the second largest money managers on earth collectively, how insurers invest your premium dollars has enormous environmental impact.
Many insurers invest your premiums in coal and other fossil fuels
With an estimated $90,000,000,000* insurance dollars invested in coal and $492,000,000,000** in other fossil fuels something needs to change.
Your insurance is likely undermining your work to preserve a healthy planet
Your team, customers, and stakeholders might be protesting to fight climate change on Sunday, but on Monday morning the money you’ve spent on insurance goes to work undoing that work—not to mention supporting insurers that are still providing insurance coverage to the activities they protested.
Insurers have tremendous power, beyond dollars invested. They decide what business activities get insured – and insurance is a prerequisite for funding, constructing and operating fossil fuel expansion projects.
Many insurers are perpetuating dependence on fossil fuels by insuring new coal, oil and gas projects.
Without insurance coverage, almost no new coal mines and power plants could be built, and most existing projects would have to be phased out. Insurance companies are in a unique position to accelerate the transition to a regenerative energy future. As risk managers they play a silent but essential role in deciding which types of projects can be built and operated in modern society.
Insurers are on the hook to pay out increasing damages caused by ever more serious hurricanes, wildfires, floods and droughts. They have access to the world’s best climate science and have warned about climate risks since the 1970s. Continuing to insure fossil fuel expansion is incompatible with their fundamental mission to protect us from catastrophic risk.
Globally, the insurance industry is in a unique position when it comes to climate risk, as insurers are exposed on both sides of the balance sheet: their investments face climate risk on the asset side, and they face underwriting risk, particularly in the property and casualty line, on the liability side.
Learn about the overlooked connection between climate and insurance
Climate change is hurting the insurance industry and only 8% of insurers are preparing adequately for its impact.
“The financial system can be one of two things—a driver of sustainable growth, or a driver of climate chaos.”
- Peter Gill Case, a Rockefeller heir and the co-founder of BankFWD
Insurance and reinsurance companies are responsible for nearly 1/5 of global capital investments, and some are thinking closely about where they are placing their bets.
Premiums for the Planet® is changing the nature of insurance
We’ve made it easy and safe to protect the planet while marking your brand as part of the solution. Don’t let your insurance undermine your values and mission. Join the movement. It’s simple and costs you nothing.
*The Washington Post
**S&P Global Sustainable1