ESG rating of the largest insurance companies 2024

A comparison of standardized ESG scores of the 25 largest insurance companies in the world shows significant differences between ESG score providers in many cases. The world's largest insurer by market capitalization, Berkshire Hathaway, saw the largest range of scores, with S&P rating the company with the score of 15 out of 100 (indicating the company has a high level of ESG risk), while Sustainalytics awarded the equivalent score of 47.6 out of 100 (indicating a below average level of ESG risk). MSCI was somewhere in the middle, awarding a score which was the equivalent of 35.7. However, there was also some degree of convergence between the three ESG score providers as well. For example, all three companies awarded high ESG scores (indicating low risk) to most of the large European insurers such as Allianz, AXA, and Zurich Insurance Group.

What do ESG scores mean?

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores are a vital investor tool used to assess a company's sustainability and ethical performance. As mentioned briefly above, ESG scores range from 0 to 100, with a score of more than 70 considered good, and a score of less than 50 considered relatively poor. In 2021, a survey was carried out to determine investor satisfaction with the quality of ESG reporting globally. It was found that the largest share of investors reported poor satisfaction with their ESG reporting.

Allianz is one of Europe's leading insurer groups

Among the European insurance companies that were awarded high ESG scores, Allianz was the largest in terms of market capitalization, which amounted to nearly 100 billion U.S. dollars as of May 2023. One of the world's leading insurers, Allianz is a German financial services company headquartered in Munich that provides insurance and asset management as its core business products. In 2023, the Allianz Group generated the highest revenues recorded during the period of observation, amounting to a value of over 160 billion euros.

Comparison of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) scores of the 26 largest insurance companies by market capitalization worldwide in 2024, by ESG score provider

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Release date

November 2024

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Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

November 19, 2024

Supplementary notes

Values have been taken from the ESG scores provided by Sustainalytics, S&P Global (RobecoSAM) and MSCI, then nominalized to a score out of 100 (with higher being better). MSCI scores are only provided in septiles, which have been turned into seven percentile bands of 14.29 percentage points, with the median percentile from each band given as the score out of 100.

All values are the most recent score posted on the relevant websites on November 19, 2024. The date each score was updated by the source on different dates over the previous 12 months.

Companies included are the world's largest insurance companies by market capitalization as of May 2023. Berkshire Hathaway, a major player in the insurance industry in addition to many other industries, was also included given its high market cap. Missing scores indicate that the ESG provider did not have a score for this company at the time of publication.

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