23 December 2021
With Adani’s insurance options both inside and outside the Lloyd’s of London market rapidly shrinking, one of the laggards still open to insuring the Adani Carmichael project is UK and Bermuda-based Convex Insurance.
Last week, Convex Insurance released its first ever “sustainability statement”. Unfortunately, what’s been released is a primary example of how to say nothing in 25 pages: throughout the statement Convex provides no substantial commitments, no deadlines and no concrete actions on how to phase out its underwriting and investments in fossil fuels.
The one thing that got our attention in the statement is Convex’s own admission of its involvement in providing insurance for the worst of the worst fossil fuels: coal and tar sands. Convex states in the statement that: “We have minor exposure to thermal coal and oil sands and their dedicated infrastructure in our direct underwriting portfolio which will not increase as a proportion of our business.”
For a relatively new company which plans to grow and expand its business in the next few years, Convex’s commitment to “not increasing exposure as a proportion of our business” is licence to increase that exposure in gross terms.
The cherry on top of this farce is Convex’s claim that one of the 5 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) it adopted as a company is #13, “climate action”.
If Convex wants its approach to sustainability to be taken seriously, then it needs to take that climate action it touts ambiguously throughout its statement. A credible first step would include an immediate end to any (re)insurance for new coal and tar sands projects. Actions speak louder than words, and that’s what real climate action looks like.