[Klik-l] Insurers Confirm Growing Risks, Costs (fwd)

[Jan Hollan <jhollan@amper....muni.cz>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:17:34 +0100
From: Miroslav Suta


Climate Change: Insurers Confirm Growing Risks, Costs

Stakeholders from the insurance industry met with members of the U.S. 
Senate to acknowledge the role global warming plays in extreme 
weather-related losses, and to issue a call for action.

The politics of global warming have typically involved much debate as to 
the role climate change plays in growing weather-related risk. 
Yesterday, however, at a Capital Hill a press conference on the cost of 
climate change, debate was not on the agenda. Pointing to a year of 
history-making, $1 billion-plus natural disasters, representatives of Tier 
1 insurance companies took a definitive stance with members of the U.S. 
Senate to confirm that costs to taxpayers and businesses from extreme 
weather will continue to soar because of climate change.

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Representatives from The Reinsurance Association of America, Swiss Re and 
Willis Re and Ceres, a nonprofit organization that leads a national 
coalition of investors, environmental organizations and other public 
interest groups working with companies to address a variety of 
sustainability challenges, joined Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sheldon 
Whitehouse (D-R.I.) yesterday to discuss the growing financial impact of 
global warming.

˙˙From our industry˙˙s perspective, the footprints of climate change are 
around us and the trend of increasing damage to property and threat to 
lives is clear,˙˙ said Franklin Nutter, president of the Reinsurance 
Association of America. ˙˙We need a national policy related to climate and 
weather.˙˙

Property and casualty insurers in the United States experienced an 
estimated $44 billion in losses last year when hurricanes, droughts, 
tornadoes and other natural disasters were more severe, longer, more 
frequent and less predictable than in the past.

According to Swiss Re, the average weather-related insurance industry loss 
in the U.S. was about $3 billion a year in the 1980s compared to 
approximately $20 billion annually by the end of the past decade.

˙˙As a member of the global insurance industry, we have witnessed the 
increased impact of weather-related events on our industry and around the 
world,˙˙ said Mark Way, head of Swiss Re's sustainability and climate 
change activities in the Americas. ˙˙A warming climate will only add to 
this trend of increasing losses, which is why action is needed now.˙˙

The insurers cited Tropical Storm Irene as an example of one of the record 
14 natural disasters in the United States last year that each caused more 
than $1 billion in damage. Irene alone, which first came ashore as a 
hurricane, killed at least 45 people and caused more than $7 billion in 
damage, affecting both Senators˙˙ states.

˙˙Perhaps no industry better understands the impact of global warming than 
the insurance industry whose job it is to analyze risk,˙˙ Sanders said. 
˙˙I am pleased leaders in that industry are speaking out about the need to 
reverse global warming.˙˙

Added Whitehouse, ˙˙Extreme weather events, like Rhode Island˙˙s historic 
floods in 2010, can result in the loss of homes, livelihoods, and even 
lives. These extreme events fit a pattern predicted by climate scientists, 
and we should take action now to minimize the damage that carbon pollution 
is causing to our country and our world.˙˙

Cynthia McHale, the insurance program director at Ceres, issued a more 
unequivocal statement: ˙˙Our climate is changing, human activity is 
helping to drive the change, and the costs of these extreme weather events 
are going to keep ballooning unless we break through our political 
paralysis, and bring down emissions that are warming our planet. If we 
continue on this path, extreme weather is certain to cause more homes and 
businesses to be uninsurable in the private insurance market, leaving the 
costs to taxpayers or individuals.˙˙

˙˙Extreme weather is a threat today and a greater threat tomorrow,˙˙ said 
Pete Thomas, chief risk officer at Willis Re, one of the world˙˙s leading 
reinsurance intermediaries. ˙˙I˙˙m pleased to see the federal government 
grappling with this issue. The continuing work of Sens. Sanders and 
Whitehouse is an important start for this necessary dialogue."

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