Insurance & Climate Change

  Insurance & Climate Change is about the future of insurance as our changing global climates affect all forms of insurance, including liability claims and health care claims. The reader will look at the science behind it, the political issues involved and the insurer's role. The most dangerous aspect of global warming is the liability that commercial policyholders will eventually face. Since insurers issue liability policies, that means insurers are facing this huge risk as well, since claims will certainly be the result. It is expected that global warming liability claims will be far greater than those of tobacco or asbestos. This is known by insurers, of course, so they must anticipate the costs those claims will bring.

  This course covers risk management, failures of countries to mitigate the risk, how insurers are trying to mitigate the risk as much as they can, what costs they are facing, and the possibility of insurers stepping back from some types of risk, which would then place these risks on the taxpayer’s shoulders, much like flood insurance. It is a complex subject and a complex course.

  The final chapter specifically covers ethics as it relates to climate change. Many may come away from this course feeling that the entire course could have been an ethics subject since much of the information looks at the failures of our country and others to act responsibly (and responsible actions is an ethics topic). However, prior to the ethics chapter the intent is not the lack of ethics, although that is fairly obvious, but rather how the insurance lines will be affected by global warming.

Our goal as an educator: to introduce a subject that most people have not previously taken. It is difficult to offer new subject matter to insurance agents because most insurance remains fairly stable. There might be occasional new elements, such as legal marijuana, but for the most part, insurance does not change. This course is certainly a change.

Thank you,

United Insurance Educators, Inc.