Coalition of insurers and reinsurers committed to net zero underwriting portfolios, sharply reduced after antitrust pressure in 2023.
The Net Zero Insurance Alliance was a coalition of insurers and reinsurers created in 2021 under United Nations auspices, committed to aligning their underwriting portfolios with a net zero trajectory by 2050. It was the insurance counterpart of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero. In 2023 the alliance suffered a collapse in membership after letters from US lawmakers alleging an anticompetitive collusion risk, with several major members withdrawing to avoid legal exposure. The initiative was restructured into a less binding forum. This episode illustrates the collision between competition law and coordinated climate action in the financial sector, and the legal fragility of collective exclusion commitments. For specialty underwriting it pushed each insurer back to an individual trajectory rather than a shared market discipline.
The withdrawal of several continental reinsurers from the NZIA in 2023 marked a turning point, refocusing climate commitments on internal policies rather than a sector-wide alliance.
NZIA, alliance assurance net zéro, Forum for Insurance Transition to Net Zero