The world’s largest insurers are neglecting environmental protection, health and human rights, denounces the British NGO ShareAction, which calls on these financial giants to reform their practices.
Whether they insure businesses or invest the significant funds they manage, insurance companies have a huge role in supporting sectors of the economy that have the greatest environmental and social impacts by producing fossil fuels, destroying ecosystems for agriculture and mining, underlines the NGO in a report published Thursday.
Axa and CNP Assurances among the good students
Of the 65 largest global insurance companies whose practices were studied by ShareAction, only two groups, the French Axa and CNP Assurancesobtain a score above 50% on a scale concocted from 74 indicators concerning their approach to climate change, biodiversity and social issues (Axa 52% and CNP Assurances 51%).
Two other French groups are cited in the study: AG2R la Mondiale (26%) and Groupama Assurances Mutuelles (21%). Although still weak, European insurers are doing significantly better than their counterparts in Asia and North America, the report indicates.
The British marketplace Lloyds of London (6%), followed by the American Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co (0.3%) and the Japanese Sony Financial Group Inc (0%) are thus at the bottom of the ranking for damage insurance. Among the 13 groups operating within the Lloyds of London marketplace, Aegis Managing Agency Ltd comes in last place with a score of 0%.
Home Insurance : save up to €125 per year thanks to our online comparator
The American Protective Life Insurance Co is last in the ranking for life and health insurance with a score of 1%. The NGO notes that insurers suffer from the effects of global warming and the destruction of ecosystems in their own accountson which climatic disasters weigh heavily, the increase in costs of which amounts to billions.
It proposes to the insurance sector to join the strategy to limit the rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees, under the Paris Agreement, whether in their insurance coverage or in their investment portfolio.
A global alliance of insurers for the zero carbon objective (NZIA), created in July 2021 and under the aegis of the UN, lost a large part of its members in spring 2023 after receiving a letter of criticism from the of around twenty Republican state attorneys in the United States who cited a risk of obstruction of competition law.