Energy industry

The glass tower in Paris where Axa SA, one of the world’s largest insurers, has its temporary headquarters looks as if a giant feral cat has ripped chunks out of it. In recent months that jagged feeling extends inside, too, as senior executives prepared to claw off an extraordinarily profitable part of the company’s $20 billion business: the oil and gas clients whose ties to the insurer go back decades.

A group of the world's biggest insurers and reinsurers jointly pledging to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from their underwriting activities have run into an unexpected opponent of their planet-friendly mission: competition law.

About 20 nations have signed on to a deal to stop funding foreign fossil fuel projects -- with a last-minute entry by Italy. But the impact of the accord is undermined by the absence of key countries like China.

AXA SA, France’s biggest insurer, is broadening the list of fossil-fuel activities that it will refrain from investing in, as pressure grows on financial companies to step back from funding industries that damage the climate.

To date, just one insurer has promised to take “significant action” in this regard, according to analysts at Societe Generale SA. Australia’s Suncorp was the first to announce it would no longer provide coverage for all new oil and gas production projects.

Insurtech's technology will power smartphone-based telematics initiative to help score oil and gas drivers.