Climate change

As we emerge from the pandemic and look to the future, the case for cloud must be elevated beyond the limitations of IT savings, to how insurers can use it to address their biggest business challenges.

The disruptions created by the pandemic, natural disasters and a shifting workforce in the past year have challenged insurers to respond to market uncertainties with speed. Before looking at where technology met its goals and where there are opportunities for 2022, it bears noting how carriers mitigated uncertainty and aggressively charted a path forward. Carriers didn’t shy away from the need to digitize or accelerate movement to the cloud.

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.

There’s little faith in the global economic recovery accelerating, with officials and business leaders citing climate change and rising social tensions, alongside the pandemic, among their top risks, the World Economic Forum found.

The U.S. utilities sector could suffer annual losses of up to $4.1 billion as climate hazards threaten to batter the industry’s infrastructure, according to a new report.

Ecosystems, sustainability and workforce transformation were the main topics of the EY 2022 Global Insurance Outlook, which comes out in January 2022. It’s important to understand how digital transformation is uniquely related to each of those topics.

In case you missed it, insurtech -- technology developed to improve and transform the insurance industry -- is having a bit of a moment. Forrester recently reported record-breaking funding for insurtechs, closing Q3 at $15 billion - more funding than in 2019 and 2020 combined - with more deals anticipated by the end-of-year.

Consumers getting policies from the California FAIR Plan climbed about 25% in 2020, according to data from the state’s insurance department. That was due to increases in both new policies and renewed ones.

The final standards, which govern the release of carbon dioxide from the tailpipes of cars and light trucks, roughly translate into fleet-wide fuel economy values of 55 miles (89 kilometers) per gallon in model year 2026.

Commercial structures across the U.S could face up to $13.5 billion in damage in 2022, an amount that will rise at least 25% over the next 30 years as climate change exacerbates flooding from sea rise, storms and extreme rain events, according to First Street Foundation.

In other news: Chubb teams up with Betterfly in Latin America; Franklin Mutual partners with vipHomeLink; Aon announces last-mile insurance with CarrierHQ.

The clock is ticking for banks, insurers and asset managers still providing support to oil, gas and coal producers. It’s not just the moral imperative—that fossil-fuel use is destroying the atmosphere and life on Earth with it. It’s that their financial health requires leaving such companies behind.

New research highlights the evolving role of the insurance industry from reimbursements to incentivizing to reduce risk and prevent losses altogether.

In other news: Liberty Mutual launches insurance agency; Neptune Flood releases carbon-neutral plan; New York Life announces CEO-elect.

American International Group Inc. and other insurers avoided steep losses from a spate of extreme weather this year thanks in part to the reinsurance industry. But increased reliance on those policies probably means price hikes are coming.

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.

The impending loss and federal probe are the latest blows for embattled PG&E. The company incurred a $1.09 billion third-quarter loss because of bankruptcy costs, state-mandated contributions to a wildfire-insurance fund, prior fire-season damages and other costs, according to a statement.

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.

Insured losses from the storm, the second-most intense hurricane to hit the state of Louisiana, will probably range between $28 million and $30 million, the reinsurer said in a statement Tuesday. It estimated its own cost from claims related to the storm at about $750 million.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency in April announced the first significant update to the beleaguered National Flood Insurance Program, which covers about 5 million properties. Premiums have risen steadily, but the program is more than $20 billion in debt, thanks in part to rising seas and stronger storms. Now, a quarter of the participants will see lower costs, while the remainder will see premiums rise in increments as high as 18% annually.