Climate change, for insurers
after activists and scientists, now insurance companies have joined the debate on climate change, with this year's storm damage already hitting insurers' bottomlines. The world's two largest re-insurers, Swiss Re and Munich Re AG, are leading a drive to encourage companies to look at the impact of climate change on business, post-Katrina. Swiss Re is looking to incorporate climate change into its plans, and investing in "greener" companies and starting a us $350 million clean energy fund. Skeptics assert insurers are only using climate change as an excuse to raise rates.
With natural disasters more than doubling between 1960-2003, the Association of British Insurers says that by 2080, costs from hurricanes, typhoons and windstorms will jump by two-thirds to us $27 billion a year. For consumers and companies, greater risk will spell higher premiums.
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