London – As part of London Climate Action Week, the UNEP Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI) Working Group for Nature today launched “Rooted in Risk: Framing nature-related assessments for insurers”, the first in a series of foundational guidance documents for the global insurance industry focused on nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities in underwriting portfolios. The “Nature Uncovered for Insurers” series developed by the PSI Working Group for Nature (WGN) aims to address a critical gap in guidance on nature-related assessments by providing tailored guidance for insurance underwriting portfolios.

This first part of the series, Rooted in Risk, contextualizes existing nature-related approaches across both non-life and life & health insurance business models and supports insurers in identifying which parts of their value chain may be exposed to nature-related issues and how these issues may materialize across different lines of business.

Building on the priority actions outlined in PSI Working Group for Nature’s inaugural report “Insuring a resilient nature-positive future” the report aims to provide a technical basis to help insurers prepare for and conduct their own nature-related assessments, thereby strengthening their ability to identify priority areas for action and derive substantiated, appropriate and proportionate responses aligned with a nature-positive and resilient future.

The report provides guidance to insurance companies seeking to understand the relevance of nature-related issues to their underwriting portfolios, as well as for organizations that support them in this process. Users can engage with the report according to their respective levels of familiarity and expertise.

While nature-related approaches have progressed across the wider financial sector, guidance tailored to insurance underwriting portfolios remains limited. Existing frameworks are often general in scope or focus primarily on investment and lending portfolios. The absence of dedicated methods for underwriting portfolios creates barriers for insurers seeking to understand how their underwriting portfolios contribute to, or are exposed to, nature-related issues.

To address this gap, the PSI Working Group for Nature is advancing tailored guidance to support insurers in implementing nature-related assessments within their underwriting portfolios. The second part of the “Nature Uncovered for Insurers” series entitled “Breaking Ground” will be launched later this year.