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Utilities struggle to insure new coal power, contracts reveal

Utilities struggle to insure new coal power, contracts reveal

Inexperienced insurers now underwriting operating coal plants as mainstream companies increasingly exit market Utilities are struggling to find insurance to build…

Lloyd’s new ESG report: greenwashing, not climate action

Lloyd’s new ESG report: greenwashing, not climate action

Lloyd’s of London published its 2021 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report two days ahead of its Annual General Meeting…

Mums ramp up pressure on Lloyd’s to stop insuring fossil fuels

Mums ramp up pressure on Lloyd’s to stop insuring fossil fuels

Parent groups, Mothers Rise Up and Parents For Future UK, are calling on Bruce Carnegie-Brown, Chair of Lloyd’s of London…

Arch becomes eighteenth insurer to sever ties with the Trans Mountain Tar Sands Pipeline

Arch becomes eighteenth insurer to sever ties with the Trans Mountain Tar Sands Pipeline

Number of insurers ruling out Trans Mountain continues to grow, following a year of climate impacts along the pipeline route…

Trans Mountain insurer Aspen commits to cut ties with the tar sands pipeline

Trans Mountain insurer Aspen commits to cut ties with the tar sands pipeline

Aspen joins sixteen companies that have ruled out insuring Trans Mountain Trans Mountain insurer and Lloyd’s of London syndicate Aspen…

100 organisations call on Lloyd’s to reject EACOP

100 organisations call on Lloyd’s to reject EACOP

Nearly 100 civil society organizations working to advance human rights and environmental justice sent a letter to the Chairman and CEO of…

Mothers call on Lloyd’s to stop hurting #OurOtherMother, Planet Earth this Mothers Day

Mothers call on Lloyd’s to stop hurting #OurOtherMother, Planet Earth this Mothers Day

Ahead of UK Mother's Day (Sunday 27th March), a group of mothers from Mothers Rise Up and Parents For Future…

Lloyd’s failure to implement ESG policy is driven by its CEO John Neal

Lloyd’s failure to implement ESG policy is driven by its CEO John Neal

Meeting reveals Neal's failure to understand the need to stop insuring fossil fuel expansion On February 16, Insure Our Future…

Lloyd’s ESG policy is small step, but they must drop all coal and new oil & gas, now

Lloyd’s ESG policy is small step, but they must drop all coal and new oil & gas, now

Lloyd's ESG policy is a small step in the right direction, but highlights that more ambitious and urgent action is needed.
Coal is increasingly uninsurable in 2020, but industry fails to act on oil & gas

Coal is increasingly uninsurable in 2020, but industry fails to act on oil & gas

Major companies in the U.S., the Lloyd’s market and East Asia are still insuring coal, and the industry has failed to exit oil and gas.
Lloyd’s insurer Apollo drops Adani Carmichael coal project

Lloyd’s insurer Apollo drops Adani Carmichael coal project

Lloyd’s Apollo has dropped Adani’s Carmichael coal project following pressure from the climate campaigners and the #StopAdani movement.
Hundreds joined online rally calling on Lloyd’s to #StopAdani

Hundreds joined online rally calling on Lloyd’s to #StopAdani

Climate campaigners call on Lloyd’s of London and its members to follow the lead of 23 major insurance companies and drop Adani.
Lloyd’s must wash its hands of coal and tar sands

Lloyd’s must wash its hands of coal and tar sands

Insure Our Future took global climate concerns to Lloyd’s front door when it reopened its underwriting hall.
Coal Policy Tool sheds light on financial institutions’ coal policies

Coal Policy Tool sheds light on financial institutions’ coal policies

Reclaim Finance, with 16 other NGOs, released the first online tool to evaluate the coal policies adopted by financial institutions.
Insurers must end support for oil & gas projects to meet climate targets

Insurers must end support for oil & gas projects to meet climate targets

Insurers must end all support for new oil and gas projects, Insure Our Future says in a letter to insurance company CEOs.
Lloyd’s undermines climate targets with $460 million for tar sands pipeline

Lloyd’s undermines climate targets with $460 million for tar sands pipeline

Lloyd’s one of the biggest supporters of Canada’s Trans Mountain pipeline, enabling expansion of tar sands undermining climate targets.

Insuring the unacceptable

Lloyd’s is insuring some of the world’s worst fossil fuel projects that other insurers have dropped or refused to cover due to their climate impact. Stark examples of projects and companies that Lloyd’s should immediately prohibit all members of its market from renewing insurance for include: the Adani Carmichael coal mine in Australia, the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline in Canada, the Rosebank Oil Field in the UK, Ichthys LNG in Austraila and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline – EACOP.

Lloyd’s should make a clear public commitment that its members will not renew insurance for these climate destroying projects when they come up for renewal in 2021.

Canada

Trans Mountain Pipeline – TMX

Status: Construction

Project: Tar sands pipeline extension (1,150km)

Purpose: Boosting oil sands transportation from 300,000 boe/d to around 900,000 boe/d between Edmonton (Alberta) and Burnaby (British Columbia).

Environmental impacts:
More than 80 oil spills were reported within the period 1961 to 2016.

Social impacts: Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of Indigenous communities has not been secured.

Controversy level: Very high due to civil society’s opposition.

Lloyd’s of London’s involvement: Lloyd’s underwriters have been involved for years in this project at least from 2014 to 2020. Since the insurance contract renewal of August 2020, Trans Mountain has been allowed to hide its insurers by the Canada Energy Regulator (CER)

6 managing agents that ruled out TMX:
Argenta Syndicate Management, Argo Managing Agency, AXA XL Underwriting Agencies, AXIS Managing Agency, Munich Re Syndicate, QBE Underwriting.

14 managing agents that need to rule out TMX:
This list includes Beazley Furlonge, Brit Syndicates, Chaucer Syndicates, Hiscox Syndicates, Liberty Managing Agency, MS Amlin, Talbot Underwriting, Tokio Marine Kiln Syndicates, and the others not mentioned above.

Last updated May 18, 2023

United Kingdom

Rosebank Oil Field

Status: In development

Project: UK’s biggest undeveloped oil and gas field with a total of nearly 500 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe).

Purpose: Allowing the extraction of the 500m barrels of oil and gas, over 1 km deep off the Shetland coast in the North Atlantic – majority of Rosebank’s oil will be put in tankers and exported for refining overseas.

Environmental impacts:

  • Over 200 million tonnes of CO2 – the climate pollution from Rosebank’s reserves would be more than the combined annual CO2 emissions of all 28 low-income countries in the world, including Uganda, Ethiopia and Mozambique.
  • Potential threat to protected species including the whale dolphin and seabirds, as well as having a possible impact on commercial significant species of fish, such as haddock.
  • An oil spill from Rosebank’s operations could be devastating for marine ecosystems in the waters of the UK and neighbouring countries.

Social impacts: The UK public would carry almost all the costs (91%) of developing Rosebank. Due to the UK government’s oil and gas subsidies, the UK public would hand over £3.75 billion in tax breaks to Equinor just to develop the field. Overall, the public purse could lose more than £100 million on its ‘investment’ if Rosebank goes ahead, while Equinor and its partners take the profit.

Controversy level: Very high due to local and international opposition.

Lloyd’s of London’s involvement: Lloyd’s and many Lloyd’s managing agents are named as insurers of numerous oil companies operating in the North Sea. Lloyd’s has refused to comment on its involvement nor on specific projects, such as Rosebank.

Discover more from the StopCambo campaign or read this factsheet.

Australia

Ichthys LNG

Status: Operating

Project: One of the world’s biggest gas projects gathering extra large infrastructure, such as the world’s largest semi-submersible production platform and the longest subsea pipeline of the southern hemisphere (890km).

Purpose: Exporting around 9 mtpa of LNG (roughly 10% of Australia’s annual LNG exports).

Environmental impacts:

  • Crosses a protected marine national park.
  • One of the most carbon-intensive LNG projects in Australia due to high levels of gas flaring.

Social impacts: Not yet documented.

Controversy level: High due to local opposition to new or expanded gas projects in Australia (Barossa gas field, Scarborough gas field, etc.).

Lloyd’s of London’s involvement: Five managing agents of Lloyd’s were involved in the project insurance policy of the onshore Ichthys LNG plant between 2012 and 2017. Navigators Underwriting Agency Limited and AmTrust Syndicates in addition to three managing agents, assessed in the report.

Read Reclaim Finance’s report on Ichthys.

3 managing agents involved in Ichthys LNG:
Beazley Furlonge, Canopius Managing Agents and Talbot Underwriting. AmTrust Syndicates, which merged with Canopius in 2019, was also involved.

Last updated May 18, 2023

Uganda - Tanzania

East African Crude Oil Pipeline – EACOP

Status: Construction

Project: Heated crude oil pipeline (1,440km, the world’s longest heated pipeline.)

Purpose: Allowing more than 200,000 boe/d to flow from the Tilenga and Kingfisher oil fields neighbouring Lake Albert in Uganda to the Indian Ocean in Tanzania.

Environmental impacts:

  • The pipeline will pass next to the Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake, that more than 40 million people depend on for water and food production.
  • It will cross more than 200 rivers and run through thousands of farms.

Social impacts: In total, this project will require the displacement of roughly 118,000 people
along the pipeline’s route, primarily farming communities who live off their land.

Controversy level: Very high due to local and international opposition.

Lloyd’s of London’s involvement: Leading (re)insurers, including Munich Re, Allianz and Hannover Re have ruled out insuring the EACOP due to the serious environmental, social and governance impacts, many of which are inherent to the project. However Lloyd’s has so far refused to comment.

Find out more from the StopEACOP campaign.

9 managing agents that ruled out EACOP: 
Aegis Managing Agency, Argo Managing Agency, Argenta Syndicate Management, AXA XL Underwriting Agencies, AXIS Managing Agency, Beazley Furlonge, Canopius Managing Agents, QBE Underwriting, Munich Re Syndicate.

11 managing agents that need to rule out EACOP: 
Brit Syndicates, Chaucer Syndicates, Hiscox Syndicates, Liberty Managing Agency, MS Amlin, Talbot Underwriting, Tokio Marine Kiln Syndicates, and the others not mentioned above.

Last updated May 18, 2023

Australia

Adani Carmichael Coal Mine

Status: Construction

Project: One of the largest coal mines in Australia, which could produce 60 mtpa (million tons per annum) of coal at peak production.

Purpose: Extracting 2.3 billion tons of coal for export to Asia (mainly India).

Environmental impacts:

  • The Adani Carmichael mine is known as a carbon bomb and could emit up to 2 billion tons of CO2 during its lifespan.
  • Adani’s Abbot Point coal port is nestled between ecologically significant wetlands, sacred Juru traditional sites, and the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

Social impacts: Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of Indigenous communities has not been secured.

Controversy level: Very high due to local and international opposition.

Lloyd’s of London’s involvement: The Lloyd’s insurance market has been involved in providing insurance for the Carmichael coal project since 2019. Probitas has been named as insurer of the Carmichael rail line, coal haulage operation

14 managing agents who ruled out the Carmichael project 
Argenta Syndicate Management, Argo Managing Agency, Ascot Underwriting, AXA XL Underwriting Agencies, AXIS Managing Agency, Beazley Furlonge, Brit Syndicates, Canopius Managing Agents, Hiscox Syndicates, Liberty Managing Agency, MS Amlin, Munich Re Syndicate, QBE Underwriting, Tokio Marine Kiln Syndicates.

6 managing agents who did not rule out the Carmichael project
This list includes Aegis Managing Agency, Talbot Underwriting, Chaucer Syndicates, and the others not mentioned above.

Last updated May 18, 2023

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