Insurers warned…

Don’t insure climate wrecking projects!

Hundreds of insurance staff in Manchester arrived at work this morning to be confronted with the deadly role that their company is playing in wrecking the environment and destroying nature after an overnight action by Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil.

Posters highlighting the horrifying fact that insurers are green-lighting ‘carbon bomb’ oil, gas and coal projects that will pave the way to a future of deadly famine, floods, heatwaves and war were plastered across eight offices in Manchester by activists from Greater Manchester and Cumbria.

The insurers working from those offices – AIG, Hiscox, Markel, Travelers, Chubb, Liberty Mutual and Tokio Marine – are refusing to rule out insuring the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and the West Cumbria Coal Mine. QBE’s Manchester office was also targeted as they have not ruled out insuring the West Cumbria mine.

We are demanding that these companies immediately announce that they will not underwrite any of the new fossil projects and infrastructure, including EACOP and the West Cumbria coal mine, that will destroy our fading chances of a climate-safe future.

For too long, insurers have hidden from the public their willingness to insure climate breakdown to turn a profit. No longer. Today is part of a nationwide campaign that will keep exposing their greed and recklessness and trash their reputations until they exit the fossil fuel industry completely and for good.

No insurance means that fossil fuel crooks will have to stop drilling and digging the products that are threatening all of our lives. We appeal to the bosses of these companies to do the right thing and pull the plug on oil, gas and coal.

EACOP: Planned to be the world’s longest heated oil pipeline, it would run from Uganda to Tanzania cutting through Lake Victoria, the second-largest freshwater lake in the world. But, thanks to communities and campaigners uncovering human rights abuses and severe pollution risks, 28 global insurers have publicly ruled out EACOP. As a result, the pipeline has been stuck in the planning stages for over years and construction has not yet begun.

West Cumbria Mining Ltd wants to extract 2.78 million tonnes of coking coal annually from what would be the UK’s first new underground coal mine in 30 years at Whitehaven in Cumbria. (See our ‘Stop the mine‘ pages for more on this)

Insurers that have already ruled out underwriting the mine are AEGIS Managing Agency, Argenta Syndicate Management, Argo, Hannover Re, Talanx, Probitas and Zurich.