To my Pennsylvania Readers, take a deep breath, the Democratic Primary will be all over soon and the machine will leave your state. No more auto calls or visits from college kids. They were here in my state and left. I am sure they will leave you too.

Otherwise, enjoy Earth Day! What does Earth Day have to do with Business Insurance? Everything. In fact, I will make the argument here that, if it was not for insurance companies, the current attention given to climate control initiatives and other environmental issues would not exist.

Insurers make money by controlling and predicting risk. Insurers have been at the forefront of fire safety, consumer safety, and automobile safety. Those safety initiatives led to the creation of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and Underwriters Laboratory. By making things safer for their insureds, insurers can better manage risk and earn a greater return on investment. Simply put, less accidents, less claims.

Climate change and pollution disrupt the insurers ability to control risk. More floods, famines, tornadoes, droughts - more claims. More claims means less return on investment. All of the big insurers have made it corporate policy to investigate the effect people are having on the Earth and to encourage climate protection. Insurance brokers, such as Marsh have been at the forefront of encouraging ways to reduce global impact to reduce risk. In fact, in 2006, Michael G. Cherkasky, president and chief executive officer of Marsh "identified climate change as one of the most significant long-term issues facing world businesses."

The surest and quickest road to change is when there is a profit motive. Insurers and brokers have an immense profit motive to encourage environmentally friendly policies and to protect the Earth. And, that is not a bad thing.