Since 1994, we have pioneered activities that enhance understanding of the global insurance industry's exposures to climate change and proactive strategies for responding to the risk. Our work has included forging new linkages between the energy and insurance communities by cultivating measures that simultaneously lower energy bills and yield traditional insurance loss-prevention benefits like the reduced risk of property, health, or liability claims. Some strategies have insurance value in terms of improved indoor and urban air quality, while others offer the added benefit of reducing energy-related pollution. These "no-regrets" measures stand to financially benefit insurance companies and their customers in the near term, irrespective of the environmental dividend that may also result in the long run.

Consultations with insurance industry members help guide our work. New projects and partnership opportunities are continuously under development. Among the specific "tools" we have successfully helped insurers recognize and utilize are:

Highlights

• Serving as Coordinating Lead Author on a chapter about banking, insurance, and climate change for the Intergovernmenal Panel on Climate Change's "Third Assessment Report".
• Conducting specific research on climate change and insurance with respect to wildfire damages and flood-related crop damages.
• Making the "business case" that efficiency and renewables can provide risk-management benefits (e.g. through a review of 80 technologies from 9 National Labs) -- presented in a major research report and summarized in Best's Review.
• Demonstrating the use of premium credits to promote energy efficiency (Developers Professional Insurance Company now offers a 10% credit to architects & engineers who practice commissioning)
• Partnering with individual insurers to demonstrate the implementation strategies (Arkwright Mutual Insurance company now FM Global) of energy-efficient and fire-safe lighting fixtures in college dormitories.
• Commercializing the disaster-relief version of UV Waterworks to help provide potable drinking water following natural disasters (in cooperation with the insurance industry’s Institute for Business and Home Safety, IBHS)
• Documenting how energy-efficient construction and modernization can reduce the risk of loss of life or health problems during urban heat catastrophes.
• Documenting the problems and opportunities faced by insurers as related to indoor air quality.
• Involving insurers in the ENERGY STAR programs. (HSB was among the first companies to have their building labeled under the Program.)
• Achieving extensive coverage of our work in the insurance trade press, including Best's Review (P/C & L/H) National Underwriter, Risk Management, and Reinsurance, The Review: Worldwide Reinsurance, the Journal of the American Academy of Actuaries, and the Journal of the Society of Insurance Research.
• Publishing in the technical literature, including an in-depth article in the journal Science.