Environmental Practices and Insurance Companies. Evidence from Europe. D'Apolito Elisabetta, Capozza Claudia, Celestiano Kimberly.

This chapter focuses on a particular type of financial intermediary: insurance companies. The chapter aims to examine how insurance companies address climate risks and the transition to a sustainable economy. To this end, an empirical investigation has been conducted on a sample of 60 European-listed insurance companies, observed over the six-year period going from 2017 to 2022. The analysis carried out through a panel model investigates the relationship between the environmental performance of insurance companies and their main features, such as company’s solvency, economic performance and climate-related risks and opportunities, using sustainability indicators. The main findings of the analysis show that better economic performance of insurance companies is associated with better environmental performance, especially with performance related to companies’ emissions and environmental innovation. The insurance companies that develop new products/services to overcome the threats of climate change are associated with better environmental performance, except for those concerning the use of resources.