Investsure discount on ESG Investments

InvestSure discounts insurance on ESG stocks

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing is taking the world by storm! The ESG framework gives investors actionable data with which to grade and screen potential investments, to create portfolios that reflect their personal values.

Many investors interested in sustainable investing have been looking for ways to align their principles, like ethical business practices, with their investment decisions and ESG investing offers the opportunity to do just that.

In support of the ESG investing movement, InvestSure has halved its annual insurance premium on 50 top-rated SA and US-listed ESG shares! That’s R3 to cover holdings shares worth R1 000. InvestSure usually charges 0.6% to give investors annual protection against share price losses caused by management fraud.

What’s ESG investing?
In general, ESG investing prioritize companies that are screened for certain sustainability criteria. The ESG framework allows you to invest in companies that meet specific criteria. This criterion is categorized as Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG):

• Environmental: how a company conserves and protects the natural environment.
• Social: how a company manages relationships with its employees, suppliers, clients, and communities.
• Governance: how a company relates to board independence, leadership, risk controls, shareholder rights and business ethics.

A company’s performance over these criteria is often expressed as a score (similar to the concept of a credit score), which investors can use to screen investments. For more on ESG investing, check out this blog.

I asked Mbulelo Mpofana, Chief Operating Officer at InvestSure, what the benefits of ESG investing are.

“The ESG investing philosophy is anchored in the belief that one can do well financially while doing good through ESG-informed investment decision making. The benefits of ESG investing can be both personal- as your investment portfolio is better aligned with your personal beliefs, and financial. The biggest financial benefit in my opinion is lower risk. Companies that actively focus on managing and mitigating ESG risks should have fewer disruptions and produce more stable financial results over time, with lower downside risk for investors. I’m most interested in the G pillar as it is most closely tied to the risks, we at InvestSure help our clients mitigate. There is also growing, albeit not yet conclusive evidence that ESG stocks generate higher returns.”

Which shares are these?
Locally, we’ve selected the top 20 companies included in the JSE’s Responsible Investment Top 30 Index ranked by each company’s Sustainalytics' ESG Risk Ratings. For the US, we selected the top 30 large-cap stocks ranked by each company’s Sustainalytics' ESG Risk Rating.

ZAR stocks

 US stocks 

What is InvestSure?
InvestSure is an insurance product that investors can purchase which protects them from any losses in a company's share price, caused by allegations of management fraud/dishonesty. Importantly, the fraud does not need to be proven for you to recover your losses.
There are two easy ways to insure your investments.
For existing shares: you can insure any shareholdings where you see an umbrella icon by clicking on the selected shares (to see the expanded view), clicking on the "Review Insurance" button, and then on "Add Insurance".
Alternatively, for new investments: you can insure your shares at the time of purchase by simply clicking on the "Add Insurance" button and accepting the T&C before completing the transaction.