http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bc66f794-9...0779fd2ac.html
Pollution policy
A sure sign that your affluent financial centre needs to do more to clean up the environment? When an international insurer starts selling “pollution protection plans” to your citizens.
Such is the case in Hong Kong, which today gains the dubious honour of being the first city in the world where insurance giant American International Group will be selling insurance policies targeted at illnesses caused by pollution and food poisoning.
The plan, essentially a more narrowly defined health insurance policy, will be launched next in São Paulo, Brazil, before other cities across the world.
Hong Kong’s government has been facing growing calls to improve air quality. Its standing in quality-of-life surveys has suffered recently because of complaints about its air pollution.
Environmentalists in Hong Kong would rather the money going into insurance accounts was somehow used instead to clean up the air.
But if AIG’s latest product proves popular, environmentalists will at least gain one piece of ammunition: a handy statistic to cite on the monetary cost of pollution.