The Hartford, Munich Re Rank High For Climate Risk Response
By Matthew Sturdevant, The Hartford Courant | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
Last year, insurance regulators in
The survey drew 330 responses.
Ceres, a nonprofit organization that analyzed the responses, said it found a strong commitment by nine companies and "generally poor responses among the vast majority [of insurers]."
"Despite being on the 'front line' of climate risks, most of the company responses show a profound lack of preparedness in addressing climate-related risks and opportunities," Ceres President Mindy Lubber said in a statement.
Ceres directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk, a network of 110 institutional investors whose assets collectively are
"We have an active educator membership that cares a lot about climate change, about environmental risks, and about making sure that we invest our money prudently on their behalf for their pensions, and as we talk about this, this issue particularly raises increasing concerns, I think, for everyone,"
"This is not a theoretical issue, it's not an academic issue," Ehnes said. "We're concerned about climate risk and how the companies we invest in respond to it because it's about the investment performance of the portfolio."
The Ceres report ranked various types of insurers, not just those that provide property coverage.
Rankings were assigned in the following categories: climate risk governance, whether the business has climate risk management across the enterprise, climate modeling and analytics, stakeholder engagement, internal greenhouse gas management, and climate risk disclosure and reporting.
Each insurer received an overall grade from one to four and one word describing each level: "leading" for 4, "developing" for 3, "beginning" for 2 and "minimal" for 1.
Of the 330 respondents, 276 were given "minimal" or "beginning" rankings. Health insurers and life-and-annuity companies were particularly weak, according to the report.
Ace, Munich Re,
"We have a suite of products that help our customers go green, including premium discounts for owners of hybrid vehicles and electric vehicles," The
"The
"Insurance companies with their deep risk knowledge and extensive data can play a critical role in helping society to adapt to increasingly severe weather on many fronts," Kuczinski said. "These include supporting policies and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as developing risk transfer solutions for low carbon and energy efficient technologies which enable private sector investments."
The complete list of insurance companies is online at ceres.org. Among companies that either have major operations in
The following companies received a score of 2: Aetna,
"We recognize that the environment plays an important role in the health of our communities and continue to strive to be good environmental stewards in our day-to-day operations and long-term strategic planning."
Correction: A previous version of this article said
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