This report maps how non-life insurance underwriting activities connect to the five main drivers of biodiversity loss, including land-use change, pollution, and climate change. It finds that insurers have largely overlooked their responsibility for the environmental impacts of the activities they make possible, and that significant opportunities exist to redesign products, exclude harmful activities, and incentivise sustainable behaviour.

This matters because without insurance, many environmentally damaging activities like fossil fuel extraction and industrial shipping could not operate at the current scale, meaning insurers hold real but underused leverage to accelerate the transition to a nature-positive economy.

Partners: WWF, Deloitte

Source: Deloitte & WWF Switzerland. (2020). Underwriting our planet: how insurers can help address the crises in climate and biodiversity. https://www.wwf.ch/sites/default/files/doc-2023-09/WWF_Deloitte_Insurance_Biodiversity_Climate_2023.pdf