Insurance gains CORSIA ground. In the four months since ICAO recognised the role of dedicated insurance policies (including those provided by Oka) to ‘guarantee’ carbon credits—protecting airline buyers against the risk of double counting—the carbon-credit registries have been making slow but steady headway towards making insurance more widely available. The World Bank’s MIGA policy was the first to be approved at the tail end of 2024, signalling to the market that insurance will play a big part in the world’s first mandatory offsetting scheme. Behind the scenes, our engagement with the registries—coupled with a growing pipeline of interest in our Corresponding Adjustment Protect™ policy—gives us additional confidence that private insurance will soon be a critical piece of the CORSIA market infrastructure.

You can read more in Carbon Pulse, where I was recently interviewed about the need for insurance to scale the market (TL;DR: Insurance is “primed to ease” the supply bottleneck of CORSIA-eligible credits). Important insights also from MIGA re provider collaboration: “we cannot cover the entire market; we need collaboration with private sector entities.” 

CORSIA credit crunch looms. Emerging evidence points to an imminent and growing supply-demand imbalance, with the provision of CORSIA-eligible credits falling far short of projected airline demand. The combination of mandatory insurance and limited capacity would further throttle supply—one bottleneck, at least, for which private insurance solves. Other factors may be harder to fix. On the demand side, there’s the fact (reported in Bloomberg) that global air travel is surging and the switch to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), lagging, which means airlines will need to buy far more credits than previously anticipated. Mandatory offsetting begins in 2027, at which point we expect the market to be hit by $2bn in additional demand. Judging by the CORSIA credit prices reached at auction this quarter, however, buyers aren’t waiting to be told.

Climate targets, carbon policies, fuel activity. It’s fair to say carbon markets have had a bumpy few years. That may be about to change. Since 2023, the introduction of standards (ICVCM, VCMI) and insurance has helped to restore confidence from within (despite remaining flat in dollar terms, 2024 saw a record volume of long-term capital commitments (MSCI) and number of individual buyers (Sylvera))—while two external developments are set to drive further demand. First, favourable policy, in the form of (recently approved) international carbon trading rules and associated domestic markets and taxes. Second, the steady rise (and looming first deadline) of climate targets, implemented by 52% of all publicly listed companies. More than 10,000 firms are aligned with the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi)—which, in March, softened its rules on using credits to offset hard-to-abate emissions. Watch this space.

📣 Our Active Underwriter Sima Adhya was invited to speak on two major panels in March: one on the role of insurance in harmonising voluntary and compliance markets (InsurTech Insights, Europe’s largest insurtech summit); another on insurance opportunities in the climate space (Better Insurance Network’s Annual Sustainable Insurance Summit). 

🗞️ I also had the opportunity to add Oka’s voice to the debate: speaking to a similar theme (climate-related insurance risks and opportunities) on a CleanTech Group webinar panel and in an Environmental Analyst interview; sharing my predictions for carbon markets on the S&P ESG Insider podcast; and spotlighting Oka’s progress and process in a profile interview with The Insurer. 

🚀 Last (but definitely not least), we were delighted to see Oka named among the “climate fintech trailblazers” cited in CommerzVentures’s landmark ClimateFintech Report 2025.