Swiss researchers win Shin Research Excellence Award

Kyobo Life COO Yun Your-hyun, second from left, and Jiahua Xu, one of three winners of 2019 Shin Research Excellence Awards, hold a copy of the award at the International Insurance Society Global Insurance Forum at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, June 20. Courtesy of Kyobo Life Insurance

By Lee Kyung-min

A team of researchers in Switzerland has won the 2019 Shin Research Excellence Award for illustrating the potential impact of the insurance industry on countering climate change, Kyobo Life Insurance said Monday.

The award, established in honor of group founder Shin Yong-ho in 1997 and organized by the Geneva Association and the International Insurance Society (IIS), said the team effectively outlined the impact of “redirecting major capital ?ows associated with its investment and underwriting businesses towards carbon-neutral activities.”

The team, comprised of Alexander Braun and Sebastian Utz both of the University of St. Gallen, and Jiahua Xu of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, won the award for their paper “Are Insurance Balance Sheets Carbon-Neutral? Harnessing Asset Pricing for Climate-Change Policy.”

Xu is a postdoctoral researcher while Braun and Utz are an adjunct professor of risk management and an assistant professor of finance, respectively.

The study outlined a two-pronged approach, designed to incentivize carbon-neutral activities, so as to examine and categorize carbon exposures in investment portfolios in line with complementary regulatory reforms mandating disclosure.

Blue Marble Microinsurance CEO Joan Lamm-Tennant who reviewed the papers said insurance can be a force for good, and their paper provided compelling evidence.

“The focus of the 2019 Shin Research inspires a comprehensive, enterprise-wide response to one of the greatest threats facing society today,” he said according to a statement provided by Kyobo Life.

The paper was presented at the IIS Global Insurance Forum in Singapore from June 18 to 21, with over 500 senior insurance leaders from around the world in attendance.

It will be published in the Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance: Issues and Practice and distributed by the IIS and The Geneva Association.