SUSTAINABILITY
Insurers on the front line For insurers, the climate conversation starts with risk. Günther argued that climate action is now inseparable from competitiveness, because a market that ignores rising physical and transition risks will become harder to insure, harder to price and ultimately harder to sustain.
“ It starts to get very difficult to have a competitive economy that’ s more important than climate impact,” he says, reminding the audience how insurance sits at the heart of economic functioning. If risk becomes unpriceable, capital becomes harder to deploy and growth becomes more constrained.
“ Risk goes very fast,” he continues,“ and the insurance market also grows very fast. If insurance players want to stay in business, the insurance industry has to start to work on this. This is why we say that we need to work to net zero or cap developments – because otherwise, adaptation is an open-ended game. We never adapt to what we create when there are ongoing issues.”
That is why the Allianz position matters beyond the company itself. The group’ s sustainability strategy integrates climate considerations across insurance, investments, asset management and operations, with net zero transition plans spanning proprietary investments, property and casualty insurance and own operations. In practice, that means climate is not treated as a standalone ESG topic, but as part of core risk and portfolio governance. This is why Günther emphasises that although some
“ It starts to get very difficult to have a competitive economy that’ s more important than climate impac
Günther Thallinger Board Member Allianz
94 September 2026