Aviva, Axis and Munich Re are the only major (re)insurers that write more direct premiums for renewable energy than fossil fuel infrastructure, according to a new report by Insure Our Future, which slammed industry-wide underwriting of fossil fuels as “economically dubious”.

Generali, Allianz and Zurich have topped the 2024 scorecard by Insure Our Future for implementing the most comprehensive fossil fuel underwriting restrictions across 30 global (re)insurers.

Insurers are not giving sufficient consideration to nature-related risks across their entire underwriting portfolios, according to a new guide by the UN Principles for Sustainable Insurance initiative.

Geopolitical competition and growing global demand for lower-carbon technologies is likely to result in supply chain disruptions for lithium-ion batteries in the coming years, QBE Asia has warned, with rapid manufacturing developments likely outpacing regulations.

A disorderly net-zero transition could impact European insurers’ investment returns by up to 13 percent in the short term, a new report by Ortec Finance has said, while failure to transition altogether would slash real estate and equity portfolio returns by more than half.

Carriers are increasingly embracing risks and exposures associated with battery energy storage systems (BESS), including the development of a revenue protection product, as underwriting loss data for other renewable technologies matures.

Zurich’s Alison Martin has called for greater trust from regulators in the ability of insurers to understand the risks on their own balance sheets, while also warning that greater policy intervention is needed to ensure that the industry does not become “the climate change police”.

Davies Group – including its captive management business, MGA/broker incubation platform and Lloyd’s third-party managing agent Asta – will be focused on rolling out a new culture strategy and beginning to tackle supply chain emissions in 2025 under its new office of responsible business.

Dame Inga Beale has issued a rallying cry to the insurance sector to accelerate the pace of digitalisation and decarbonisation to attract both younger and external talent in order to ensure the future relevance and sustainability of the industry.

As COP29 prepares for its second week in Baku, Azerbaijan, Sustainable Insurer reflects on discussions so far and what more needs to be done to elevate the role of (re)insurance in global dialogue.

The UN-convened Forum for Insurance Transition to Net Zero (FIT) has marked Finance Day at COP29 with the publication of the first global guide on transition plans for insurance companies.

The introduction of (re)insurance to the Finance Day agenda at COP29 marks a “critical paradigm shift” in how the sector is increasingly perceived as a strategic priority in accelerating the low-carbon transition, a new report by Howden has said.

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (Eiopa) has called for additional capital charges for European insurers’ transition-exposed assets to help better align capital requirements with insurers’ actual risk exposures.

The next five years will see the wider financial system adopt the metrics and methodologies of the insurance sector to quantify physical climate risk, Howden’s Rowan Douglas has predicted, with parametrics at the heart of this transformation.

Parametric insurance can serve as the “grease” to help get renewable energy projects off the ground, Chaucer’s Ed Byrns told a panel discussion at the inaugural