Client and industry interaction

Efforts to address environmental and social risks are obviously more effective when many companies join forces. This is why we seek to further promote sustainability risk management within the re/insurance industry.

We take an active role in several industry organisations that promote sustainable business practices. One of them is the Chief Risk Officer (CRO) Forum (www.thecroforum.org). In 2014, we helped produce its publication on “Human rights and corporate insurance”, the fifth in its series on managing environmental, social and governance (ESG) challenges in business transactions.

We were also strongly involved in the development of the Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI) by the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative, UN EPFI (www.unepfi.org/psi). We were one of the initiative’s original signatories and currently hold its co-chair. Launched in 2012, the PSI address environmental, social and governance issues in the re/insurance industry, spanning risk management, underwriting, product and service development, claims management, sales and marketing, and investment management. Our Public Disclosure of Progress for 2014 is included in chapter “PSI – Our public disclosure of progress”.

As the PSI’s co-chair in 2014, we contributed to the implementation of its global strategy and work programme for 2014 to 2016, which spans key projects and activities across environmental, social and governance issues. The PSI have witnessed strong growth since their launch in June 2012: In 2014, four more companies joined the initiative, with combined gross premiums of approximately USD 192 billion and USD 3 trillion of assets under management. Thus, there were a total of 43 PSI signatories at the end of 2014, representing approximately USD 766 billion in gross premiums (approximately 17% of the world total) and USD 14 trillion in assets under management.

Human rights and corporate insurance

The purpose of this paper by the CRO Forum is to build an understanding of why the insurance industry has to bring respect for human rights into its risk management framework and how it can address human rights issues in its business relationships with other corporations.