QBE Insurance have formally responded to our resolutions. It’s a bit disappointing.

The company seems to be asking investors to uncritically accept their word that they are doing enough to manage the risks from climate change - rather than being transparent and letting investors decide if the company has done their homework.

This includes failing to meaningfully respond to our resolutions, which asks QBE to:

• Explain how much of its current insurance business could become unviable because of the physical risks of climate change.
• Explain whether its continued insurance of expanding oil and gas projects is an act of self-harm that threatens the company’s future.

With their Annual General Meeting (AGM) approaching on Friday 8 May in Sydney, now is the time to turn up our scrutiny on their continued insuring of fossil fuel projects.

SIX’s ESG Manager, James Alexander, has had a full few weeks building big investors’ support for the resolutions.

Alongside Australian Ethical’s Ethical Stewardship Lead, Amanda Richman, James has been engaging dozens of institutional investors (like super funds) and their advisers to brief them on our resolutions challenging QBE’s continued insuring of big fossil fuel projects.

Our team has been sharing our concerns, including that QBE:

• Considers climate risk to have a limited financial impact on their business, which seems incompatible with the known physical risks of climate change.
• Says it can simply raise its customers' premiums to recover the increasing damage caused by climate change, even though it was part of a study that showed this may reduce people’s trust in insurers.
• Is made an outlier, compared to their peers, by their continued unrestricted insurance of new and expansionary oil and gas.
• Recognises that strong governance processes are important for managing climate-related risk, but doesn’t disclose information to allow shareholders to assess the effectiveness of the company’s governance processes.

James has reflected:

“Overall, I’m encouraged by the response so far from investors.

“We met with people from an investment fund in the US called Trillium, who have 30 years of using their investments to advocate for change. They said our focus on the threat that continued insurance of fossil fuels has to the economy, and as a result our pension funds/superannuation funds, was compelling.

“I’d like to see more investors focus on changing the small number of companies that have a huge impact on the planet and society.”

James & Amanda have several more investor meetings in the lead up to the AGM, and will also continue to engage with QBE directly on this issue.

Investors can send James a direct message at james@six-invest.com.au to request the investor brief.

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Photo credit: VirtualSteve.