It’s simple: without insurance coverage, fossil fuel projects can’t be built.
While the insurance industry is supposed to protect us from catastrophic damages like fires, flooding, and storm damage caused by the climate crisis, it turns out that insurance companies are actually a huge part of the problem, and Insurance giants like Chubb, Liberty Mutual, and AIG are fueling the climate crisis.
The insurance industry supports fossil fuel expansion by:
- Investing in fossil fuel companies: Insurance companies take your premium payments (aka the money you pay for your car, home, and health insurance) and invest it in fossil fuels.
- Insuring fossil fuel projects: Just like how you can’t drive a car or buy a house without insurance, companies can’t build or operate destructive fossil fuel projects like pipelines, coal-fired power plants, or liquefied “natural” gas (LNG) terminals.
Insurers can single-handedly stop the expansion and operation of most fossil fuel projects by refusing to insure them.
These so-called “risk experts” know exactly what they’re doing to our climate because they’re already paying for climate damages across the country. And, instead of protecting communities, they’re increasing the costs of insurance or withdrawing coverage entirely from regions experiencing the worst climate impacts, like the coasts of Florida and wildfire-ravaged counties in California.
And just as these companies are abandoning the communities that need help the most, they continue to support the fossil fuel industry.
How YOU can help
It’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) season – where banks and insurance companies share their plans for our collective futures.
New York City-based insurance giant Chubb is a major fossil fuel insurer connected to fossil fuel companies and projects all over the world, from oil and gas offshore in Brazil, to LNG in Texas, and even providing coverage to the North Brooklyn pipeline.
In March of 2023, Chubb became the first U.S. insurer to adopt oil and gas restrictions in protected areas. While a big step in the right direction, this policy has a lot of loopholes, and the company has a long way to go.
We have a set of clear demands for Chubb to become a climate leader and insure our future, not fossil fuels, and we need you to help amplify them ahead of their AGM:
- Immediately stop providing new financing, investment, insurance coverage and other financial services to fossil fuel companies, and divest from existing assets.
- Immediately stop insuring new and expanded coal, oil, and gas projects;
- Set 1.5°C-aligned zero dates for phasing out all fossil fuel insurance;
- Immediately end financing for projects and companies that are implicated in abuses of human rights, especially Indigenous rights.
