Climate Change - Reinsurance companies have a skin in the game.
1929: “... we wonder whether the deeper causes are not to be sought in certain climatic changes, which make the present tariff rates based on an earlier experience appear inadequate”
1973: Swiss Re mentions CO2 increase as potential risk.
1974: cyclone Tracy damage in Australia prompted creation of geo-risk units dedicated to the geosciences.
1989: "Munich Re’s board decided that beginning in the summer of 1990 they should make a concerted effort to counter the widely held opinion that the climate changes and natural catastrophe events still move within “the statistical corridor,” for “this conviction is no longer acceptable”
1990s forward: Reinsurance companies became frustrated with IPCC's cautiousness. "When the IPCC came out more strongly in their stance on the root causes of climate change in their fourth report,
reinsurers, unsurprisingly, felt vindicated."
Source:Bookkeepers of catastrophes: The overlooked role of reinsurers in climate change debates
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378024001353
#climatechange #insurance #economics #climate