By After fierce pressure from frontline organizers, climate activists, and allies – Chubb insurance has become the first major insurer to stop covering Rio Grande LNG, a dangerous methane gas export terminal planned near Brownsville, Texas.
This is a massive win for the community, as Chubb backing out sends a crucial message to their peers: Rio Grande LNG is NOT worth the risk. This is a major crack in the insurance industry armor and methane gas, because remember, these projects can’t happen without insurance, which is why cutting off their coverage is vital.
It’s also another indication that Chubb is movable, further cementing how crucial it is to keep the pressure up on this company.
How combined, sustained pressure made this happen
It can’t be understated how fiercely frontline communities have been fighting against Rio Grande LNG, Texas LNG and the Rio Bravo Pipeline, for years. It is as a direct result of their efforts — with the support of other grassroots organizers, climate activists, environmental NGOs, and allies — that this major step happened.
This combined and persistent pressure looked like:
- Ground-breaking research that exposed insurers involvement, as well as the health, community, ecosystem, and climate impacts of methane and Rio Grande LNG specifically.
- Risk Exposure: The Insurers Secretly Backing the Methane Gas Boom in the US Gulf South: released in February 2024, reveals for the first time the extent and scale of specific insurers’ direct complicity in the reckless expansion of methane.
- Insure Our Future Scorecard on Insurance, Fossil Fuels and the Climate Emergency: an annual report that analyzes 30 leading primary insurers and reinsurers, assessing their policies on insuring and investing in coal, oil and gas.
- Rio Grande Valley At Risk from Methane Gas Export Terminals: an annual report that details the severe regional and climate impact, as well as reveals the social and financial risks for the companies backing these projects.
- Media exposure targeting Chubb, detailing the impacts of methane, exposing lies from NextDecade (the company responsible for Rio Grande LNG), and calling attention to the dangers of these projects.
- Newsweek publishes an op-ed from RAN focusing on the severe climate impacts of methane expansion, and names planned terminals such as Rio Grande LNG.
- In April 2023, a rocket explosion at SpaceX literally shook the community, injured beach-goers, and littered the area with debris, including on the very site that Rio Grande LNG is set to be built. Hear first-hand details from Brownsville resident and activist Bekah Hinojosa of South Texas Environmental Justice Network.
- The Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas exposes NextDecade for falsely claiming that sacred lands were not harmed during land clearing activities for Rio Grande LNG.
- Direct action shows companies like Chubb that they can’t keep to business as usual, like hundreds of people marching in New York City to Gulf leaders showing up at their lobby in Houston.
- We took our shared messages directly to where it hurts Chubb the most, the Chubb Classic, their signature golf tournament for the ultra rich in Florida, broadcast live on NBC Sports Golf Channel).
- The first-ever Global Week of Action Against Insurers had over 100 actions across 31 countries, with thousands of frontline community leaders, activists, organizations, and allies taking to the streets calling for just climate action.
- Online actions: hundreds of thousands of activists and allies increased pressure online through tactics like blasting and tagging Chubb on social media, sending emails to Chubb Execs, and most-notably, over 360,000 participations on a petition demanding Chubb and their peers stop insuring Rio Grande LNG, that was then hand-delivered during the Insurance Global Week of Action.
- Information sharing through avenues like social media and blogs to debunk the myth that there’s anything “sustainable” or beneficial about methane gas expansion and highlight the impacts of Rio Grande LNG.
- Meetings between Chubb and impacted community leaders: Unlike their peers, Chubb was open to meeting with frontline and Indigenous community leaders and hear from them directly about the impact of Rio Grande LNG. The conversations with community leaders were an important precursor to Chubb expanding its conservation standards to rule out insuring new, greenfield oil & gas projects, like Rio Grande LNG.
Then in August 2024, through an open records request for Rio Grande LNG’s 2024 insurance certificate, we discovered that Chubb dropped Rio Grande LNG!
But the fight against Rio Grande LNG — and other terminals like it — isn’t over
So, what’s next? Unfortunately, the fight against Rio Grande LNG is still ongoing because other insurers are still supporting it, and banks are financing it. Insurers still behind Rio Grande LNG include big US names like Liberty Mutual and AIG – who actually took over Chubb’s policy of the project.
Japan financial institutions are also heavily involved, with MUFG taking over as the Financial Advisor of the project in 2022, and is a top financier, along with Mizuho. Sompo insurance is also still providing coverage.
Additionally, Chubb has yet to rule out all coverage of methane gas, and is still insuring other methane gas terminals, like Freeport LNG in Texas and Cameron LNG in Louisiana.
We’re not stopping now. Together, we’ll get Chubb’s peers to back away from Rio Grande LNG. Together, we’ll keep the momentum against Chubb and get them to drop Cameron LNG, Freeport LNG and other methane terminals in the Gulf. And together, we’ll get these insurers to stop insuring methane expansion once and for all.
