LLOYD’S of London’s new CEO has abandoned his predecessor’s climate commitments, allowing insurers to resume covering the most polluting fossil fuel projects.
Patrick Tiernan told the Financial Times that the historic insurance marketplace will no longer discourage insurers from providing cover for coal or other planet-warming fuels. His position aligns with President Trump’s renewed push for fossil fuel expansion and “drill, baby, drill” policies.
The reversal breaks a 2020 pledge made under former chief executive John Neal to phase out insurance coverage and investment in thermal coal plants, coal mines, oil sands and new Arctic energy projects by 2022.
Tiernan, who assumed leadership in June, justified the shift by saying Lloyd’s must remain “apolitical” and respect local laws across its operating territories. “We respect the laws of the land in the countries where insurers at Lloyd’s operate,” he told the Financial Times, adding that the corporation defers to government energy policies.
The marketplace, housed in the City of London’s distinctive inside-out building, comprises over 50 insurers and hundreds of brokers selling specialist policies covering everything from hurricanes to trade disruption.
America represents roughly half of Lloyd’s business, making it the corporation’s largest single market. Even before Trump’s return to office, US local governments and business leaders had criticised large investors’ fossil fuel divestment efforts as anti-competitive.
Tiernan leads a new management team alongside chairman Sir Charles Roxburgh, whose wife Dame Karen Pierce previously served as Britain’s ambassador to America and developed close ties with Trump.
