Insure Our Future adds LNG to underwriting restriction demands

By Rebecca Delaney

June 12 - (The Insurer) - Environmental campaign group Insure Our Future has explicitly called on insurance CEOs to cease providing coverage to liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals in its newly published list of demands for 2025.

"The growing litany of catastrophes worldwide share a common driver of risk: the unsustainable combustion of coal, oil — and, increasingly, LNG methane gas," said the letter.

The coalition of 26 climate activist groups said supporting new gas projects will lead to both stranded asset risk and escalating physical risks for insurers, including devastation to major coastal cities, destabilising megaforests, and disrupting rainfall cycles, as outlined in the first planetary health check last year.

Insure Our Future has therefore explicitly added LNG infrastructure to its existing list of demands for underwriting restrictions on new and expanded coal, oil and gas projects across the entire value chain.

Another new demand urges insurers to "use all available mechanisms" to ensure that insurance remains affordable and accessible for communities, while also supporting efforts to make polluters pay for climate disasters, such as taking legal action against fossil fuel companies.

Other existing demands include calls for (re)insurers to immediately cease new or existing insurance services to companies engaged in fossil fuel expansion, or those that are not aligned with a credible 1.5°C pathway.

On the investment side, the group has previously called on the industry to stop new investments and phase out existing investments in companies involved in the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure.

Insure Our Future has also recommended the adoption of underwriting and investment targets that align with a global 6:1 ratio of clean and sustainable energy supply relative to fossil fuels by 2030.

This refers to $6 of insured value from, or investment in, sustainable electricity supply assets (across production, storage, transmission and distribution) for each $1 of insured value from fossil fuel assets over the entire value chain.

For biodiversity, the group has called for the exclusion of insurance services to high-impact activities that are located in, or impact, areas of high biodiversity importance, as well as the development of broader policies on biodiversity and water protection that incorporate robust due diligence and verification mechanisms.

The group has also called on (re)insurers to align lobbying, political spending, fossil fuel customer stewardship, trade associations and public positions to limit warming to 1.5°C under board oversight, transparent metrics, reporting and escalation protocols.

"These policies should be applied by both insurance and reinsurance companies at the group level," said the letter. "Reinsurance companies should apply the policies to direct, facultative and treaty businesses."