QBE and Sompo Holidngs have both announced their resignations as a member organisation from the Net Zero Insurance Alliance.
This news takes the total now exited from the NZIA to nine major insurance and reinsurance players.
The QBE and Sompo Holdings exits come right after two other big firms, namely AXA and Allianz, had announced their exit from the NZIA.
Scor has also announced its exit from the alliance earlier this week.
QBE said in a statement, “We will continue to work with our stakeholders to deliver on our broader sustainability strategy.”
Sompo Holdings, the parent of the Sompo insurance group and international re/insurer Sompo International, did not make a statement on its exit, but it was reported widely.
Earlier this week, John Neal the Chief Executive of Lloyd’s of London spoke 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With some major re/insurers having withdrawn from the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has stated that there’s a “fundamental and urgent” need for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.
Also this week, reinsurance giant Swiss Re became another 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.
This week has seen some of the biggest re/insurers back out of the alliance.
The speculated reasons for these are that many companies are now withdrawing 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 while lawmakers there on the Republican side are pushing back on ESG.
