After two years of unprecedented wildfire seasons, insurers are pulling out of parts of California and southern Oregon—sending “non-renewal” letters to thousands of homeowners, raising rates, or not writing policies at all in some areas most affected by wildfires. They’re also doing this in flood/drought zones of the Midwest and hurricane-prone areas in the South and East Coast.
Hypocritically, some of these same insurers are also heavily invested in fossil fuels driving the climate chaos behind these disasters and are funding major tar sands and oil pipelines that could contribute to “game over” for our planet—the Transnational Pipeline, the KXL pipeline, Line 3, and more. Insurers should be taking a lead on climate action instead of profiting from the very thing destroying our communities.
Insure our Future just released the 2020 report card on fossil fuel insurers. Some European and Australian insurers are phasing out fossil fuels, but US insurers are escalating their investments while lobbying to block climate legislation.
Powerful Indigenous resistance has arisen across North America and the National Congress of American Indians has called on insurers to guarantee that fossil fuel projects have obtained the Free, Prior, Informed Consent (FPIC) of impacted tribes. This is not only because of environmental destruction to Native lands and waters, but also the threats that invading “man camps” pose to Indigenous women and the risk of spreading COVID-19. Just this week, the Wet’su’wet’en tribe reported a COVID-19 outbreak in a pipeline camp on their lands.
Take action at https://stopthemoneypipeline.com/email-insurers/
