Ethical Car Insurance

Ethical car insurance companies

With the majority of brands scoring below 25/100, and no Best Buys for car insurance, there isn't a big choice of highly ethical car insurance providers. However, it's possible to find some companies in the middle of our score table which are taking steps towards becoming more ethical. 

This guide covers all the well-known brands of car insurance providers, such as Admiral, Aviva, Direct Line, along with others including Ageas, AXA, esure, First Alternative, Hastings, LV=, NFU Mutual, and Sheila's Wheels. 

Buying ethical car insurance

Car insurance matters to us because if we crash the car, it means we can cover the costs of repairs or replacement. But what are the ethical issues? Apart from giving us peace of mind, what impacts are our insurance choices having on the world?

As well as insuring us and our stuff, insurance companies insure businesses against all sorts of losses. They spread the risk of any venture and, in doing so, keep capitalism chugging along.

While many insurance companies stick to providing insurance for individuals or small and medium-sized businesses, the largest ones insure very big companies whose activities can have harmful impacts on the world, such as the development of new fossil fuel projects. They are therefore playing an essential role in the continuation of such activities.

Insurance companies are also investors. They invest our premiums (the amount paid for a contract of insurance) in the economy and those investments can end up in sectors and companies that have negative social and environmental impacts.

So, when you’re buying a car insurance policy, you’re not only covering yourself in case of misfortune, you’re also making a choice about the overall ethical direction of the economy.

Difference between insurance underwriters and brokers

There are two main types of company that sell car insurance: underwriters and brokers.

When buying insurance, most people do so from a broker or comparison site. 

In this guide, however, we rate underwriters. These are the companies that assess and assume the risk of an insurance policy and pay out in the event of a claim. They are the ones that invest our premiums and provide insurance for companies. It therefore makes sense to rate their policies and practices.

A lot of banks provide insurance but most of them aren’t underwriters. The exception is Lloyds which underwrites its own home insurance policies and those of its Halifax brand. It sells car insurance too but doesn’t underwrite these policies – they’re underwritten by a range of other providers. 

We have not included brokers in the score table. This is because brokers research and recommend policies from a range of underwriters, but they don’t actually assume the risk of an insurance policy. So it would be difficult to provide a single rating for such companies. If buying from a broker, you can normally see the list of underwriters they use on their website and any policy document should tell you who the underwriter is. You can also tell your broker if there are any underwriters you don’t want to buy from. 

Although we have not rated them in the guide, we have included information on some ethical insurance brokers, and a bespoke ranking of the specialist green and charity broker Naturesave. 

We have also provided background information on some of the bigger comparison websites which are used for car insurance quotes.

Transparency of insurance companies and fossil fuel funding

While most insurance companies now have some kind of ethical investment policy, it’s less common for them to have a policy on the kinds of business they underwrite. Neither do they disclose their insurance clients so it’s difficult to know what kinds of sectors they’re involved in. 

For most companies in this guide, it’s probably less important as their business is providing insurance to individuals and, in some cases, to small and medium-sized companies. But the big three, Allianz, Aviva, and AXA also provide insurance to big businesses including fossil fuel companies and all of them now have policies to exclude, at least to some extent, the insurance of new fossil fuel projects.

• Allianz excludes single-site standalone insurance for new projects such as thermal coal mines or exploration and development of new oil and gas fields. It also excludes companies planning new coal projects such as plants and mines. It does not have a similar restriction for companies planning new oil and gas projects.
• Aviva states in its ESG Baseline Underwriting statement that it will not offer insurance for the “development of new or expansion of existing coal mines, oil or gas fields.”
• AXA states that it won’t provide new insurance policies to companies planning to develop new thermal coal mines, new thermal coal-fired power capacity, and coal transporters or traders developing new coal assets. It has some exclusions for oil and gas but these are less comprehensive.

These policies are to be welcomed but the summaries above don’t reflect their nuance and the companies have allowed themselves scope to deviate. 

For example, Aviva states that as an exception to its exclusion policy it will consider companies “serious about their transition out of high carbon fuels through a credible transition plan and approved Science Based Target (SBTi) or an equivalent target validation that aligns with the goals of the Paris agreement.” Allianz’s policy allows it to underwrite the development of new gas fields if a government decides it is necessary for “energy security emergency reasons”.

These exceptions may be reasonable if carefully and sparingly applied. But without transparency about who the companies are insuring it’s very difficult to hold them to account for compliance with their own policies. We’d therefore like to see companies remove the loopholes or publish information about companies and projects they have underwritten as a result of using these exceptions.

How green are car insurance brands?

We rated the companies for their policies and action on climate change.

All the car insurance companies scored 0 for our climate rating (out of 100). This is because our climate rating deducts 100 points from any company that is involved in the development of new fossil fuel projects or that is involved in coal in any way.

This means that they may score reasonably well in other parts of the rating, such as their reporting of their emissions or their past and future actions to reduce emissions, but still score 0 in this category.

We include this criterion because we believe that no amount of promised action or reporting can mitigate the climate impact of new fossil fuel projects.

For the insurance companies in this guide, involvement in fossil fuels mainly arises through their investments of our premiums. 

For some companies we found information about their investments in particular fossil fuel companies. For example, according to Aviva Investors’ 2025 proxy voting record, the company held shares in Shaanxi Coal Industry Ltd and Inner Mongolia Yitai Coal Co Ltd. 

NFU Mutual’s voting report for the first half of 2024 showed the company held investments in Shell and BP. For others, we didn’t find information about particular investments but we deducted the marks if they didn’t have a clear exclusion of coal and new fossil fuel projects. This is because, in the investment world, the likelihood of investment in fossil fuel companies is very high.

Investment policies of car insurance underwriters

Our investment policy rating rewarded companies for having policies which restricted the types of companies they invested in. 

We looked for exclusions on:

• fossil fuels
• arms
• factory farming
• companies involved in human rights and workers’ rights abuses. 

We looked at companies’ company-wide exclusion policies. Some companies have ethical policies covering certain parts of their businesses, for example those which have investment funds available to the public often have a sub-set of ethical funds with more extensive and detailed restrictions. However, these don’t cover how your insurance premiums are invested so we didn’t take them into account for this guide.

Ageas came top, scoring 60 (out of 100) for this category. It had detailed policies covering all investments and these excluded all arms, both conventional and controversial. This is unusual in the investment sector as most companies only exclude controversial weapons such as cluster munitions which are regulated by international law. It also excluded companies which did not meet the standards of the UN Global Compact (which contains criteria on workers' rights and human rights).

Aviva and its brand Quotemehappy scored 40 as Aviva’s policy also referred to the UN Global Compact. However, given the company’s financing of companies supplying arms to Israel, there must be some doubt about the strength of its human rights commitment.

The esure group (including Sheila’s Wheels and First Alternative) scored 0. While it stated it had a responsible investment policy, this did not appear to be publicly available so we couldn’t check its exclusions.

Lloyds and its brand Halifax also scored 0 as Lloyds’ policies on investments explicitly excluded the investments of its insurance business.

No insurance companies had policies that excluded investments in companies linked to factory farming.

Car insurance companies and Israel

AXA has been the subject of a boycott since 2016. 

The “Stop AXA Assistance to Israeli Apartheid Campaign” targeted the company because of its investments in Israeli banks, Elbit Systems (a leading Israeli arms manufacture), and other companies associated with Israeli settlements.

The campaign has had significant successes: AXA divested fully from Elbit Systems in 2019 and from Israeli banks in 2024. The boycott remains in place, however, as recent research showed that in June 2024 the company held at least $150m of investments in eleven weapons manufacturers linked to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

A recent report by Boycott Bloody Insurance also identified AXA as an investor in 13 companies involved in the supply of arms to Israel.

Allianz and Aviva, while not subject to a boycott, also hold investments in weapons manufacturers supplying Israel. According to the Boycott Bloody Insurance report, in February 2025, Allianz held over $450m worth of investments in 15 companies supplying the Israeli military, and the amount of its investment nearly doubled during the course of 2024. The report also identified Allianz as providing insurance to Elbit Systems.

Aviva was not identified as insuring any arms companies but it had by far the largest investments in them, holding over $880m in February 2025. The report concluded that the three companies could be “considered substantially complicit in fuelling the assault on Palestinians”.

Inequality in car insurance

The finance industry in the United Kingdom has been known to be the worst performing in terms of pay between full-time male and female employees. 

Our article on the finance sector and the pay gap has more detail.

Infuriatingly, Citizens Advice found that, in 2022, there was still an ‘ethnicity penalty’ in UK car insurance. Its exploratory research indicated that "people of colour may be paying £250 more a year for their car insurance than white people in areas where there are large communities of colour."

Tax conduct and car insurance companies

Insurance turned out to be a low-scoring sector for tax conduct with the majority of companies scoring 0 (out of 100) for this rating category. 

The only companies to have no presence in tax havens and score 100 were Direct Line (which includes Churchill) and Ecclesiastical (whose car insurance is only for the clergy).

Aviva scored 0 for tax which means that if its takeover of Direct Line goes ahead, Direct Line will also score 0. 

NFU Mutual scored 70 as it did have subsidiaries in tax havens, however it had a clear statement that it didn’t use them for tax avoidance purposes. 

Admiral had one subsidiary in a tax haven and we found no explanation of its presence there or statement that it didn’t engage in tax avoidance. 

Who owns which brand of car insurance provider?

There have been several recent acquisitions in the insurance industry which means that the ownership of some brands has changed.

The Churchill and Direct Line insurance brands are currently both owned by Direct Line Group. But at the end of 2024, rival insurer Aviva agreed to acquire Direct Line. The deal is not yet complete at the time of writing and is still subject to regulatory approval so we’ve rated the two companies separately.

The same is true of esure, and its brands First Alternative and Sheila’s Wheels. They are currently owned by Bain Capital but are due to be acquired by Ageas. The deal was agreed in April 2025 and as it’s not clear yet when it will be completed, we have rated the companies separately.

Ageas has been busy as it’s also struck a deal with Saga to provide its home and motor insurance products. We previously included Saga in our insurance guides as it owned its own underwriting business but it no longer does. So, if you’re interested in a Saga policy, see Ageas’ rating.

NatWest’s car insurance is provided by UKI Limited which is part of Direct Line Group.

Who owns which brands

• Allianz: Allianz, LV=
• Aviva: Aviva, Quotemehappy
• Axa Group: Axa, Swiftcover
• Bain Capital: esure, First Alternative, Sheila's Wheels
• Direct Line: Churchill and Direct Line
• Lloyds Group: Halifax, Lloyds

Green or ethical insurance brokers

We profile a small selection of green or ethical car insurance brokers. 

Remember to check who the actual underwriter is, of any policy you are offered, if you want to avoid specific companies. (See note above.) 

1) ETA

The ETA began life as the Environmental Transport Association in 1990. It offers cycle and car breakdown insurance while campaigning for cycle infrastructure and low-carbon transport.

2) Evergreen

Evergreen Insurance Services offers home, travel, car, and business insurance. It donates some of its commission revenue to animal and wildlife charities including the Vegan and Vegetarian societies.

3) Sustain Insurance Brokers

Sustain is another business insurance specialist, this time with both B Corp and Living Wage certifications.

4) WRS

WRS is another part of the Benefact group (see Naturesave in our home insurance guide) specialising in business insurance for social enterprises, churches, and charities. 

5) Zixty

Zixty offers short-term car insurance by the day, week, or even the hour. It offers carbon offsets as part of the package which, at Ethical Consumer, we are less keen on.

Price comparison websites

The are four main price comparison websites in the UK. We haven't done a full ethical review of them at this stage, so the sketches below are just for readers to get a sense of who they are dealing with.

Although none of them really talk about ethics, perhaps the most straightforward of all the businesses, and our favourites at this stage, are Money Supermarket and Go.Compare.

1) Compare the Market

The biggest of the four comparison sites by sales, it is part of a global group offering insurance services including brokers in South Africa, Singapore, and China.

Disappointingly its parent company, BGL Holdings, is located in the tax haven Guernsey.

2) Confused.com

Definitely the company group with the most confusing corporate structure! Its ultimate parent, with the catchy title Zephyr Midco 1 Ltd, is based in London. But with another holding company in the group based in Grand Cayman, its likely approach to tax doesn't fill us with confidence.

3) Go.Compare

Go.Compare is a bit of an outlier here in that it is owned by the large global magazine publisher Future plc. It has well-known brands in its portfolio of over 200 titles including Woman’s Own and Marie Claire.

4) Money Supermarket

A smaller specialist company based in North Wales, MONY group also owns MoneySavingExpert and travelsupermarket.com

Additional research by Rob Harrison.