As physical climate risks intensify and transition-related risks reshape markets, regulation and investment landscapes, insurers face growing pressure to align decision-making across underwriting and investment portfolios.

Insuring and Investing in the Transition is the fourth publication in the Forum for Insurance Transition (FIT) Transition Plan Project. It is designed to support insurers and reinsurers in developing credible transition plans across underwriting and investment portfolios that enhance long-term business resilience and company value, contribute to financial stability, and support the transition of the real economy.

Building on previous FIT guidance, this report translates the six Total Balance Sheet (TBS) Principles into practical actions, governance arrangements, measurement approaches and implementation tools that support coherent transition planning across the balance sheet. Recognizing insurers’ unique role as risk managers, risk carriers and long-term institutional investors, the guide introduces the concept of cognitive consonance—a consistent internal logic that aligns underwriting and investment decisions around a unified strategic ambition.

 

The FIT Transition Plan Project

The FIT Transition Plan Project provides the only global transition planning guidance developed specifically for the insurance industry. Together, the four reports offer a comprehensive framework that guides insurers from the strategic rationale for transition planning through to practical implementation:

  1. Insuring and Investing in the Transition (2026): How insurers and reinsurers can turn the Total Balance Sheet Transition Plan Principles into practice
  2. A Total Balance Sheet Transition (2025): A holistic transition plan guide linking the underwriting and investment portfolios of insurers and reinsurers
  3. Underwriting the Transition (2025): A deep-dive transition plan guide for insurance and reinsurance underwriting portfolios
  4. Closing the Gap (2024): The emerging global agenda of transition plans and the need for insurance-specific guidance

FIT Transition Plan guidance is developed through a global, multi-stakeholder process convened by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The guidance is intended to help insurers develop transition plans that are credible, proportionate and decision-useful, while remaining responsive to their specific business models, geographies and regulatory contexts.