IIL announces a new committee focussing on Nature & Sustainability

It’s often been said that Insurance is the great safety net of the modern economy, allowing risk transfer across borders, through demographics and providing the incentive and ability for commerce to continue and flow even through the harshest challenges. As climate change, land-use change, pollution, natural resource use and exploitation and invasive species cause more impact on a global scale the need for insurance to rise and transform to meet this challenge grows with it, and the modern cohort of insurers and insurance professionals has to ensure that they are at the forefront of revolutionary thinking when it comes to ways to transfer risk in a sustainable way.

The formation of the IIL’s standalone Nature and Sustainability committee comes at a time when forward-thinking insurance professionals are required not only in environmental-focused lines of business but across all versions and varieties of insurance. From loss adjusting to underwriting, broking and actuarial roles, nature and sustainability will need to be considered and incorporated into the thinking behind all decision-making processes within the insurance world. This is not only about how we accommodate a changing risk environment but, perhaps more importantly, how we provide support for those individuals and entities who are actively trying to promote awareness and positive change in collaborating alongside nature – be they within or without the insurance sphere.

Emphasising the natural world in the Committee’s remit is a conscious choice as it allows focus on what is arguably the number one area of concern throughout the Environmental landscape. Biodiversity loss, nature decline and biosphere change are all accelerating and the knock-on effects of these may drive some of the largest losses that markets will have seen in modern times. ‘Nature’s’ often esoteric measurability has historically meant that insurance solutions have been difficult to quantify outside of standard catastrophe losses, however new technologies, matrices and general focus has already led to changing perspectives within the market – with London looking to lead the way in terms of those potential solution focussed individuals.

The IIL’s Nature and Sustainability Committee’s focus will be to broaden the education of members and promote best practices within the London Market to promote sustainable thinking in insurance professionals and help to find ways to innovate and promote solutions to the challenges based on the same. We look forward to supplying the market with a forum and capacity for discussion and knowledge sharing on topics around Nature and Sustainability and encourage all members to reach out with any ideas they may have to work with the Committee.