ASA Adjudication on CIS General Insurance Ltd

Ad

An ad, for CIS Cooperative Insurance, stated “new ecoinsurance for cars protects against bumps, scrapes and large-scale deforestation”. Smaller text stated “offset 20% of your car’s C02 emissions* at no extra cost to you”. The asterisk led to small print that stated “Based on an average passenger car with average annual mileage”.

Issue

Which? magazine objected that the claim "protects against bumps, scrapes and large-scale deforestation" misleadingly implied that taking out insurance would protect forests. They challenged whether CIS had evidence to substantiate that.  

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

CIS General Insurance (CIS) said they were a subsidiary of Co-operative Financial Services (CFS), and that CFS and its other subsidiary, The Co-operative Bank, had been involved in offsetting greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide emissions since 2000.  They said by the end of 2006 that had equated to the funding of over 250,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide offset via payments to Climate Care, an organisation dedicated to helping combat climate change.  CIS explained that eco-insurance was launched in May 2006, and for each policy purchased 20% of an average vehicles carbon dioxide emissions were offset via funding to Climate Care.  They said the funding was used to contribute to several carbon offset projects in the developing world: for example, since 2000 they had contributed to a project that aimed to re-establish 10,000 hectares of naturally regenerating rainforest in a Ugandan national park. In 2006, 30% of the funding paid to Climate Care by CFS was dedicated to this project and 38 hectares of forest were planted. In 2007, 30 hectares would be planted, bringing the total area planted by CFS to 223 hectares.  CIS asserted that on that basis, taking out eco-insurance did protect against deforestation.  They said they had no plans to repeat the ad in its current format.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted CIS made payments to Climate Care equivalent to the cost of reducing 20% of an average vehicles carbon dioxide emissions, and that the money was spent on carbon-offset projects in the developing world.  We also noted one of those projects involved replanting rainforest in Uganda.  Because it aimed to restore an area of previously destroyed rainforest, we considered the project to be a counter-measure to deforestation as well as a means of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide.  Although not all of CIS offset payments went to forestry projects, we considered that readers would understand "large-scale deforestation" to be an example of an ecological concern that would benefit from the funding.  We concluded that the claim was unlikely to mislead.

We investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 49.1 (Environmental Claims) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action required.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)