Why target Insurers?

Insurance is the Achilles heel of the global fossil fuel industry. It’s what gives companies such as Shell, BP and Exxonmobil the confidence to drill as the planet burns - by covering their operations against financial losses when things go wrong.

Without insurance, major oil and gas companies cannot operate and projects like the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) or the West Cumbria coal mine fail to go ahead.

Just 20 companies insure 70% of fossil fuel projects. A large number of these companies are based in the UK, mostly in the City of London. We’ll go pay them a visit and convince them to abandon the oil, gas and coal industry completely.

The Insurance Week of Actions showed that this is a fight for the climate we can win. Insure Our Survival will keep the wins coming, and begin to fatally undermine the ability of the fossil fuel crooks to go about their oily, planet-wrecking business.

This works!

Insurance is an industry that isn’t used to being targeted by protest, and which cracks under pressure when it's faced with public scrutiny and reputational damage. Zurich were just the latest to cave in and pull oil and gas insurance when faced with public humiliation and reputational damage from sustained activist pressure.

In March 2024, 6 days after Christian Climate Action occupied their City of London office lobby a major insurer Probitas1492 confirmed that they will never insure two major ‘carbon bomb’ projects – the East African Crude Oil Pipeline and the proposed West Cumbria coal mine.

Campaigning by climate movements forced six major insurers to stop insuring Adani’s Carmichael coal mine in Australia last year, bringing the total refusing to insure the project to 46. A coalition of major reinsurance firms pulled out of EACOP in January in the face of growing protests about fossil fuel expansion and fears about damage to their reputations.

Rising insurance costs were the main factor in activists halting the UK's Cambo and Canada’s Bay du Nord (Equinor) projects. Probitas confirmed it has moved away from Adani and the pressure is building on EACOP and West Cumbria Mine.