Two more big firms namely AXA and Allianz have announced their exit from the NZIA.
This news comes in post comments made by John Neal the Chief Executive of Lloyd’s of London to Reuters urging the global climate alliance for insurers to make its membership rules less prescriptive or risk falling apart, after political pressure from some U.S. states that have caused companies to leave.
With some major re/insurers having withdrawn from the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has stated that there’s a “fundamental and urgent” need for collaboration with the global insurance industry to successfully tackle the climate emergency.
Earlier this week, reinsurance giant Swiss Re became the latest to withdraw from the NZIA, which was convened by UNEP Finance Initiative’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI) at the G20 Climate Summit in Venice in 2021. Munich Re, Zurich Insurance and Hannover Re have already made their exits.
AXA made a comment on its withdrawal stating that it would focus on its own sustainability goals, meanwhile, Allianz hasn’t made a comment.
Global insurer SCOR is withdrawing from the NZIA, which was announced by CEO Thierry Léger during the company’s most recent Annual General Meeting.
There are speculations on the cause of many companies now withdrawing one of which is that re/insurers are leaving so that they aren’t exposed to anti-trust claims. Meanwhile, another reason for this could be due to a fear of losing business in the US if they continue to push the net-zero agenda.
Pressure group Reclaim Finance’s Senior Analyst Patrick McCully said, “As the Net Zero Insurance Alliance disintegrates before our eyes, we must ask why these huge companies with their hordes of lawyers did not see anti-trust issues as a major obstacle when they founded the alliance. And we must wonder whether their ditching of the alliance has more to do with fears of losing business in the US than real legal jeopardy. Real climate leaders need to fight climate denial, not cave to it. What is crucial now is that insurers do not reverse their existing climate pledges. If they cannot act together, they must act alone.”
