Thursday, March 7, 2013

What does insurance have to do with climate change?

A lot, as it turns out.

Last year, three states -- Washington, California and New York -- surveyed dozens of major insurance companies about what they're doing to adapt to risks posed by climate change, a potential game-changer for insurers' investments and the risks they take on.

An independent climate-change group, Ceres, this morning released its analysis of the responses to that survey.

Of the 184 companies surveyed, Ceres concluded that only 23 of the companies had comprehensive climate change strategies. "Those companies provide a roadmap for the rest of the industry as it begins to wrestle with the issue," the report's authors wrote.