Risk Exposure: The Insurers Secretly Backing The Methane Gas Boom in the US Gulf South

Insurance companies are supposed to protect us from catastrophic risks. Yet when it comes to climate change, insurers perpetuate climate chaos and dependence on fossil fuels by insuring new coal, oil, and gas projects while raising premiums and abandoning communities that are hit by worsening and repeat climate disasters.

A glaring example of the insurance industry’s hypocrisy is its role in supporting dangerous Liquefied “Natural” Gas (LNG) terminals across the US Gulf South. (This report will use “methane” in place of LNG, as LNG is composed mostly of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.) New research reveals the insurers are propping up methane export terminals along the US Gulf Coast even as this wave of fossil fuel expansion perpetuates human rights harms and threatens to blow past the Paris Agreement’s climate targets. At least 35 insurance companies including AIG, AXA, Allianz, Chubb, Liberty Mutual, Lloyd’s of London, SCOR, and Sompo are among some of the insurers of these terminals. Information in this report – obtained through more than 50 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests – reveals for the first time the extent and scale of specific insurers’ direct complicity in the reckless expansion of methane.

Report containing the seventh annual rankings and analysis of 30 leading primary insurers and reinsurers, assessing their policies on insuring and investing in coal, oil and gas. The report highlights progress and loopholes, calls out leaders and laggards, and identifies challenges and opportunities for the year ahead.

Report on impacts of global warming and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, 2018.

Report tracking the discrepancy between governments’ planned fossil fuel production and global production levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C, 2021.

A Roadmap for the Energy Sector, 2021.

Research that allows investors to evaluate their relative alignment with a net-zero transition in the real economy and to align with the latest science, 2021.

Data analysis on how producing and combusting the world’s reserves would yield over 3.5 trillion tons of greenhouse gas emissions, over seven times the remaining carbon budget for 1.5C, 2022.

Synthesis report provides an integrated view of climate change as the final part of the AR6 and consists of two parts: a Summary for Policymakers and a Longer Report, 2023.

Reclaim Finance Letter to Lloyd’s Managing Agents April 2024

Reclaim Finance addresses all managing agents in the world’s largest specialty insurance market, demanding action on climate from their unique position to support the energy transition needed to keep global warming below 1.5°C.

The letter seeks to challenge making catastrophe the norm, with warnings such as each additional tenth of a degree of global warming brings your industry closer to tipping points, highlighting that the symbolic $100 billion/year mark in insured losses from natural disasters has been passed for the 4th consecutive time.

In hope of seeing change, Reclaim Finance wishes to see action prior to their updated report assessing the climate commitments of all Lloyd’s managing agents, due 10th June 2024.

Highlights best practices and loopholes of insurer, bank and investor oil and gas policies.

Analyses the quality of coal policies. Counts, compares and rates the coal policies adopted by banks, insurers, asset owners and asset managers.

Annual industry scorecard. Assesses and scores the policies of 30 major (re)insurers on insuring and investing in coal, oil, gas & tar sands.

Database covering 887 oil and gas companies, almost 95% of global production. Provides detailed information that enables users to identify companies with expansion plans.

Devised to help financial institutions navigate the complicated landscape of coal-based business models. It offers key statistics on over 900 parent companies and 1,800 subsidiaries operating along the thermal coal value chain.