ESG Statement

TT Club is the established market-leading independent provider of mutual insurance and related risk management services to the international transport and logistics industry. Our mission is to make the international transport industry safer, more secure and more sustainable.

The Club was founded in 1968 as a mutual by the community it serves, and operates a “not for profit” business model. Our primary activity is providing a robust level of indemnity cover to meet the requirements of the quality container lines, ports, terminals and logistics operators that form our membership (our assureds and shareholders). This cover is underpinned by expert service to ensure our Members’ claims are handled and resolved in a fair and effective manner.

TT Club is managed by Thomas Miller, which manages or owns a broad international portfolio of insurance, professional and investment services businesses. As our agreement with Thomas Miller includes the provision of staff, premises, IT and HR, for example, its approach to ESG issues must be considered within our own ESG statement.

A core part of the service we provide is actively assisting operators to improve their risk profiles, advancing the wider membership and industry by sharing the lessons learned by individual Members to make their operations safer, more secure, and more sustainable. We understand the importance of environmental, social and governance issues for our membership, wider industry and planet and outline our commitment to ensuring our Members are supported in this quickly advancing area.

ESG framework

We have aligned our efforts with the UN Global Compact and its Sustainable Development Goals, particularly focusing on those that are most relevant to the Club and our membership. In support of our Members, we have also looked to where we can have most impact in supporting them with their own ESG strategies.

In October 2022, we became a signatory of the UN Principles for Sustainable Insurance (UN PSI), which saw us commit to the following actions:

1. We will embed in our decision-making environmental, social and governance considerations relevant to our insurance business
2. We will work together with our clients and business partners to raise awareness of environmental, social and governance issues, manage risk and develop solutions
3. We will work together with governments, regulators and other key stakeholders to promote widespread action across society on environmental, social and governance issues
4. We will demonstrate accountability and transparency in regularly disclosing publicly our progress in implementing the Principles

In line with these measures, we require that our investment managers sign up to the UN’s Six Principles for Responsible Investment, embed ESG research in their investment processes and report regularly on the ESG profile of the investments. Within the Investment Mandate, our investment managers have set minimum ESG ratings for corporate bond and equity fund holdings and these are assessed by independent agencies such as MSCI and S&P.

Environmental

We are rightly investing time in reviewing the changing landscape of current environmental issues and their impact on not only the Club but our membership as well. As we are regulated in many jurisdictions, we must meet these regulators’ requirements in assessing the impact of climate change on our underwriting and investment portfolios. We currently report on our approach to ESG using the Climate Change Risk Forum (CFRF) as a guide, and we endeavour to enhance further our reporting practices in line with the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). While there are various frameworks aimed at reaching net zero, we made the decision to become a UN PSI signatory to affirm our commitment to this goal.

Alongside becoming a UN PSI signatory, we continue to look for other suitable industry organisations with which to partner. In doing so, we make sure we are “in the room” to help shape the conversation and draw out valuable lessons learned in respect to environmental challenges for both the industry and our Members.

Loss prevention, sometimes known as risk management, is at the heart of our mission. Expertise in this area has been core part of our service since our inception, undertaking various initiatives that make the industry safer, more secure, and more sustainable. We look to give support, especially to smaller operators across the industry, in successfully navigating fast-approaching sustainability challenges. Via our loss prevention offering, we continue to act as a hub for best practice sharing and industry innovation.

Our manager, Thomas Miller, set out its ESG roadmap in April 2022, outlining a phased approach to short, medium and longer-term ESG priorities. Concerning environmental issues, Thomas Miller has committed to producing thorough global carbon footprint mapping to identify areas for improvement and allow for reporting to begin with a baseline figure in early 2023.

Social

People

Both TT Club and Thomas Miller work towards the core principle of ensuring fairness, engagement, diversity and inclusion in employment. To this end, Thomas Miller ensures its recruitment and employment practices are open, fair and inclusive, and designed to encourage opportunity for those currently underrepresented in the transport and insurance sectors.

Thomas Miller has committed to capturing diversity information from its global employees to enable properly informed discussions about developing its approach to diversity and inclusion (D&I).

Loss prevention

As described above, our loss prevention services include various initiatives that make the industry safer, more secure, and more sustainable. These efforts include encouraging and championing innovation and supporting education and training to promote a more sustainable transport industry. The latter area, in particular, will seek to strengthen and broaden the base of skilled workers in the industry in line with diversity and inclusion objectives.

Cover

Through our deep knowledge of the risks faced by operators in this sector and as a result of our governance by representatives from the industry, we seek to adapt our cover to ensure it is providing industry leading, comprehensive levels of cover so that harm caused as a fortuitous consequence of Members’ activities is compensated.

As a result of the mutualisation of risk, we are able to provide a level and standard of cover to operators in the industry irrespective of their size. We actively look to extend areas of cover as the risk profile of the industry changes. We conduct a review every year to ensure that cover meets the needs of the membership in providing comprehensive mitigation to their risk profiles, now and as they evolve. We also review our cover from time to time to identify instances where it should be extended to protect the interests of a wider stakeholder group (including the public at large, and the environment), or restricted because it indemnifies Members for activity contrary to the interests of society.

An important element of our model is the power, as a Club, to make discretionary indemnity payments to Members if they incur a loss in the course of business operations that falls outside the scope of our standard cover. This discretion is a powerful tool that enables Members of our Board, as a peer group of industry operator, to consider the risks that arise beyond the contemplation of the cover.

Claims

We have claims resource in over 20 locations around the world to assist our Members locally in handling the problems and disputes they face. As such, we reduce world travel and dependency on air miles to service our Member’s needs, always in the knowledge that we have local experts on the ground.

It has always been our policy to interpret cover broadly in the Members’ favour, and this long-established approach ensures our local claims handlers are always “on the side of the membership”.

Underwriting

The mutual model came about when industry players only wished to co-insure with peers that operated to the same quality standards and this remains the headline guide to TT Club membership. The assessment criteria for new business ensures only quality, responsible operators are granted membership of the Club. Our underwriters engage with Members and their brokers to ensure Members have the appropriate scope and level of cover to meet their needs and to ensure the interests of the wider stakeholder group are protected. We require our underwriters to be agile and future-focussed in finding new ways to support to our Members and the wider transport industry; this includes conducting thorough research to insure the newer risks that may arise as our Members pursue more sustainable operations.

Governance

Structure

The Club is owned by our Members and governed by their representatives. This, together with our high-level financial aim of balancing premium income from Members with claims payments, ensures that when the extent of cover is set it is done so first and foremost to ensure our Members have the right cover to protect their business, without thought as to the potential profitability.

The Club is governed in an open and transparent manner. Our Board is constituted of representatives of the membership, who are elected by the membership. Appointments to the Board are recommended to the membership for election at the Annual General Meeting. We are careful to ensure that our Board mirrors as closely as possible the underlying membership both in terms of geographical region and operator segment. In this way, we ensure the diversity of our membership is represented in our governance. We have instructed our Nominations Committee to seek to increase gender and ethnic diversity in the Board.

ESG measurement

We measure our approach to ESG concerns in line with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and commit to using the SASB successor, International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), to ensure that our measurement, tracking and reporting practices remain in line with best practice and industry standards.

As members of the UN PSI, we commit to reporting on our progress concerning ESG policies and measurements annually. 

Thomas Miller has developed a framework to address ahead of time any possible changes to regulatory, financial or legal reporting relating to ESG issues. This policy is applicable to all Thomas Miller owned or managed businesses.

Tax

We pay the right level of tax in all the jurisdictions we operate. Our commitment is to abide not just by the letter of the relevant tax laws, but also by their spirit to ensure we are making the right level of financial contributions to these communities. This approach is open, transparent and verified by expert third parties, including our auditors.

November 2022