Protest campaign calls on insurance workers to help.
The Burma Campaign has called on insurance workers to blow the whistle on companies working with the military regime in Burma following the publication of a report naming and shaming companies including Lloyd’s insurers.
The campaign has dedicated an area of its website to encouraging anonymous whistleblowers.
A spokesman said: “We’re sure that many people in the insurance sector aren’t happy that the industry is helping to fund Burma’s brutal dictatorship which is why we are launching our whistleblower initiative. Insiders have already come forward, but the more we know the more we can do to help the people of Burma.”
The report, Insuring Repression, is the result of a global research project where over 500 insurance companies and professionals were contacted worldwide.
There are 212 companies on the ‘shamed list’ – companies which failed to clarify whether they provide insurance services to businesses in Burma – but 215 companies joined the ‘clean list’ of companies which have stated they have no dealings with Burma.
The report revealed how foreign insurers directly and indirectly fund the Burmese regime by underwriting the regime-owned Myanma Insurance. It is an imprisonable offence to buy insurance from any other provider .
Companies in London, Antwerp, Singapore, Thailand, Germany, Bermuda, Japan and Malaysia provide insurance services to companies operating in Burma.
The Burma Campaign has called on insurers on the shamed list to cease trading with businesses in the country and if they are no longer doing so to contact the campaign team. As revealed in Insurance Times earlier this year, broker Willis has ceased trading in Burma.
A Lloyd's spokesman said: "A very small amount of reinsurance is written at Lloyd’s in Burmese shipping and aviation. We are unaware of any businesses at Lloyd’s defying international sanctions. If we discovered any underwriters breaching sanctions we would take action immediately.”
