Over 200 residents traveled to decry the insurance industry’s profit off of the destruction of their communities
***Photos and video of the action can be found here***
June 26, 2024 (NYC, USA) – Residents from the US Gulf Coast South chanting “Chubb, Get Off It, Put People Over Profit” blocked the entrance to the insurer’s building on Avenue of Americas, where half a dozen were arrested. As a historic, climate crisis enhanced heatwave bakes New York City and much of the northeast, a delegation of over 200 climate leaders and everyday people traveled from Texas and Louisiana and took action against Chubb as a top fossil fuel insurer of the methane expansion projects planned in their communities. The massive proposed methane expansion on the gulf is the biggest fossil fuel build out of our lifetime, with over 25 planned mega-facilities.
“We can’t rely on insurance companies because they’re insuring the problem,” said Ashley Gainard, a leader with Rural Roots. “They’re bringing in methane/LNG as a ‘clean industry’ and telling our town that this industry is needed. But more industry is what brought our town from 8,500 people to 6,000, because of pollution and climate disaster. Now insurance is raising the rates on us while insuring this ‘clean industry’ but it’s not a clean industry, just another dirty fossil fuel polluting our community.”
Hundreds of Gulf Coast community members, supported by local climate activists, marched on Chubb headquarters. A half dozen people were arrested blockading the building’s main entrance. Chubb had alerted all its tri-state employees and visitors that protesters may disrupt operations, which they did. Gulf community leaders spoke passionately about the threats and pollution in their neighborhoods from fossil fuel projects like those supported by Chubb and demanded Chubb stop insuring and financing LNG expansion. Protesters then marched to Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg’s upscale Central Park apartment building and renewed the demonstration there.
The action is part of a coordinated effort called Summer of Heat, a multiracial, multigenerational, cross-class movement for a campaign of sustained nonviolent direct action that demands that Wall Street stop investing in, financing, and insuring fossil fuels. This week is focused on the communities fighting the financiers and insurers that profit off of the fossil fuel companies in the US Gulf Coast South, an ecologically sensitive area already heavily burdened with highly polluting petrochemical and fossil fuel facilities.
Chubb is a backer of several huge fossil fuel expansion projects in the region: Rio Grande LNG, Texas LNG, Freeport LNG, and Cameron LNG. The company makes an estimated 500-800 million dollars a year in fossil fuel premiums. Insurers blame climate disasters for increasing insurance premiums in the region for homeowners and auto insurance making them out of reach for everyday people. Yet residents point out that the companies still insure fossil fuel projects in the same area, the very industry driving the rapid acceleration of climate disasters.
“Chubb insures Freeport LNG, a risky, unreliable, and dangerous facility near my environmental justice community in Freeport Texas. I and others from local communities have met with leaders at Chubb and reminded them about the terrible Freeport LNG explosion near our homes in 2022,” said Melanie Oldham, from Better Brazoria. “We showed Chubb documents about the many shutdowns and emission flarings and ongoing risks continuing to plague Freeport LNG. Our families face a triple whammy of threats from LNG, with health problems and heightened risks of death, increasingly extreme weather like hurricanes and our rising insurance costs on top of it all. Chubb must take the lead in dropping insurance coverage for Freeport LNG and shift towards insuring only clean and safe renewable energy facilities.”
Chubb has made history as the first US insurer to restrict coal coverage and for certain oil and gas projects. Yet these policies only rule out a fraction of fossil fuel expansion projects. Chubb is not yet aligned with a 1.5˚C pathway and remains far from global best practice for coal, oil, and gas policies among insurers. Under its policy Chubb can still continue underwriting many new oil and gas projects, as well as companies exploring for and developing new fossil reserves.
“We have traveled all the way to New York City to make sure these insurance executives understand that there are real world, life and death consequences facing many of us from their decisions,” said Juan Mancias, Chair of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe. “When they say ‘liability’ they are looking at infrastructure and profit margins, the liability we are concerned about is for the health and survival of our future generations.”
The economic data backs the residents’ claims. For example, premiums in Texas have risen 87.5% in the last year, and during the same time according to the NOAA, Texas had more severe storms than any other state. Climate-related disasters, like floods and storms, have doubled costs for insurance companies in the last ten years. Since 2017, insurers have paid out, on average, $110 billion a year due to extreme weather events. Meanwhile, fossil fuel insurance earned the insurance industry only around $21.25 billion in 2022.
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