Posts Tagged ‘Lloyds of London’

The times they are a changin’

Saturday, May 24th, 2008

I got a letter from our insurance company. They wanted to let us know about changes to our policy.

Let me quote:

“Added a virus exclusion to protect against a catastrophic epidemic.”

“We have added an endorsement to your policy to exclude farming and business-related liability arising out of any biological or chemical terrorism.”

“Expanded the water damage definition to exclude losses caused by storm surge, break, breach or leak of a levee, dam or canal.”

The politicians and the pundits can deny and obfuscate all they like but at the end of the day, the folks who put their money on the line selling insurance against risks might be our best canarys-in-the-mine indicators of where the real risks lay.

None of this is new, really. Back on November 3rd, 2006, I wrote about Lloyd’s of London releasing their full 360 Climate Change report which also essentially put the lie to claims by the deniers that nothing is wrong. You can read about the Lloyd’s report here:

Lloyd’s Releases Second ‘360 Report’ on Climate Change

Friday, November 3rd, 2006

– Well, people can argue back and forth and believe that each other’s opinions are just politically or ideologically motivated but when people like Lloyds of London, the world famous insurance folks, weigh in on the questions, it is worth sitting up and taking notice.

– These folks make their living by predicting the future and you can be sure that the last thing they want to do is to have the accuracy of their predictions (and thus the profitability of their predictions) marred by ideological biases of any kind. So, when they say there’s a coming problem with the climate, you can be pretty sure you are getting the ‘straight stuff’.

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Lloyd’s has released the second installment of its “360 Climate Change” series, entitled “What next for climate change?” Last June it published the first installment, entitled “Climate Change, Adapt or Bust,” which warned insurers to face up to the growing threats involved or risk being “swept away.”

Lloyd’s is providing both technical knowledge and insights to help understand and contain the effects of global warming. In this installment its market experts “highlight the key projects insured in the market that will contribute towards a sustainable future, said the announcement. “This includes ‘waste to energy’ plants, which burn household and industrial waste to give off gas and generate electricity, and wind farms, which are proving a major source of renewable energy.”

The report notes that the Lloyd’s market provides about a third of the insurance for waste to energy plants, and covers about a quarter of the world’s wind farms. Lloyd’s is also setting up a new team of experts to help its insurers prepare for and manage the growing risk of climate change.

Trevor Maynard, Lloyd’s manager of emerging risks who will lead that team, commented: “Climate change is a very real threat. It would be unthinkable for us to ignore one of the biggest dangers we face in the coming decades. Among other things, this market recognizes the importance of developing new technology to create renewable energy.”

More…

Lloyd’s full ‘360 Climate Change’ report is here.