Monday February 8, 2016

At the start of this month, Bullfrog Power attended CatIQ’s Canadian Catastrophe Conference (C4) to find out how the insurance industry is preparing for the impacts of climate change. This was the conference’s inaugural year and its goal was to “foster collaboration before, during and after catastrophic events.”

Here are five current issues trending in the insurance world and discussed at #C42016:

1. Extreme weather events used to happen elsewhere. Now big storms happen here and more often
   – keynote speaker David Phillips, Senior Climatologist, Environment Canada 

2. Climate change represents a “clear and present danger” for the insurance industry
   – speaker from the Insurance Bureau of Canada 

3. “Millennials are looking for sustainability-focused insurance companies”
   – keynote speaker Butch Bacani, Program leader, The UNEP FI Principles for Sustainable Insurance Initiative, United Nations Environmental Program
4. The role of insurance companies is not just risk transfer, but also risk reduction
   – keynote speaker Butch Bacani, Program leader, The UNEP FI Principles for Sustainable Insurance Initiative, United Nations Environmental Program
5. “A 2˚C world might be insurable, a 4˚C world certainly would not be.”
   – Henri de Castries, Chairman and CEO, AXA Group, quoted on a slide from the presentation by keynote speaker Butch Bacani

For Bullfrog, the key takeaways from this 2-day conference are:

1. Climate change is a serious issue for the insurance industry;
2. Canadians – and Millennials in particular – want their insurance companies to focus on sustainability; and
3. There needs to be a focus on both climate adaptation and risk reduction.

At Bullfrog we believe that there’s an important connection between the macro-scale impacts that climate change is having and the individual actions that Canadian individuals and businesses can take today to reduce the risks involved with climate change.

That’s where Bullfrog Power offers real solutions individuals and businesses can adopt to take action on climate change today. Find out about our green energy alternatives at /green-energy/how-it-works/. We look forward to learning more from the insurance industry at next year’s conference!