Impact of green bond policies on insurers: evidence from the European equity market

This article empirically investigates whether the introduction of green bond policies by European insurance companies has a positive impact on their equity prices. To this end, we employ a sample of listed (re)insurers in Europe using monthly data for the 2012–2019 period. We use announcements, press releases and semi-annual or annual reports to determine when the insurance companies committed to a green investment, to the issuance of green bonds or to launching a green fund. Our empirical analysis did not confirm the positive effect of green policies. However, when investigating different types of green policies, our results suggest that market investors positively price the issuance of green bonds and launching green funds.