Perhaps the greatest pressure for change, however, will come from the insurance
industry. As described above, the insurance companies are
already being battered by losses from the increase in the
violence of storms. In 2003 The Wall Street Journal reported in
2003 that,
With all the talk of potential shareholder lawsuits against
industrial emitters of greenhouse gases, the second
largest re-insurance firm, Swiss Re has announced that it
is considering denying coverage, starting with directors
and officers liability policies, to companies it decides
aren’t doing enough to reduce their output of greenhouse
gases.105
In March 2004, Reuters reported: “The world’s second largest
re-insurer, Swiss Re, warned … that the costs of natural
disasters, aggravated by global warming, are spiraling out of
control, forcing the human race into a catastrophe of its own
making.