Geneva Association - The Insurance Industry and Climate Change.

At the General Assembly of The Geneva Association held 28-31 May 2008 in Hamilton, Bermuda, the CEOs of the world’s leading insurance and reinsurance companies decided to launch a new research project on climate change and its economic impact on insurance (CC+I). This initiative reflects one of the key long-term priority areas of The Geneva Association.The objectives of the research project are to identify and analyse: 

• issues that are of specific relevance to the insurance industry, such as the likely range of future claims costs, new business opportunities and scenario testing; 
• external challenges to be addressed at the political, educational and social levels, such as the role of government-specifi c provisions concerning, e.g. building codes, zoning restrictions, etc.

The reports of the CC+I Project will attempt to lay out the common ground for the insurance industry on the topic of climate change and its economic impact on insurance. The insurance industry has several options to react internally to climate change, but in order to tackle the issue jointly, it needs to base its actions on guiding principles and key messages. 

This first report of the CC+I project, published as Geneva Report No. 2, was written by a working group of insurance executives and climate change experts, in the period between September 2008 and May 2009.