Environmental, social and governance criteria, whose place in underwriting depends on their predictive materiality rather than their moral reach.
ESG criteria gather the environmental, social and governance factors now integrated into underwriting by a large share of insurers. Their use rests on two distinct justifications that it is important to untangle, a justification of values, fragile because suspended on a political consensus that the 2025 backlash fractured, and a justification of materiality, robust because some ESG criteria, the quality of governance or climate exposure, genuinely predict loss. To found ESG on materiality anchors it in observation, apolitical and unassailable, whereas to found it on morality exposes the insurer to terrain where its legitimacy is weak. ESG moreover plays three distinct, often-confused roles, a selection criterion, a source of claims to cover, and an object of the insurer's own conduct.
Raising the premium of a poorly governed company is a material ESG criterion, predictive of frauds and disputes; refusing to insure an activity out of moral conviction alone belongs to a more fragile register.
ESG, environnemental social et de gouvernance, facteurs ESG