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Insure Our Future

Greetings,

My name is Bernadette Demientieff, I’m the Executive Director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee (GSC). On Wednesday, two GSC youth council members and I traveled over 4,300 miles from Alaska to Connecticut for Travelers' annual shareholder meeting to highlight how insurance companies are supporting the destruction of our homelands by insuring extractive projects.



We called on Travelers to help protect Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit (The Sacred Place Where Life Begins), by not insuring or underwriting any oil and gas exploration in the Arctic Refuge. To date, 18 insurance companies have issued such a policy because of associated financial risks. 


During Travelers AGM, I asked board members to respect the rights of the Gwich’in Nation who are united against development in the coastal plain, asking, “Are you willing to risk your reputation as a company and place greed and profit over our  people and our future?”


Today I call on all insurance companies to rule out insuring or investing in the Arctic Refuge and to respect Indigenous rights by developing or updating their human rights policies to require clients to obtain Free, Prior, and Informed Consent from affected Indigenous communities.


Find out more about insurance AGM happenings below and an exciting effort from students refusing to work for climate-wrecking insurance companies.


Bernadette Demientieff,
Executive Director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee

CAMPAIGN UPDATES

Insurance AGMs opt for business as usual as climate crisis escalates
May 2023


In the past 10 days, fossil fuel insurers Chubb, The Hartford, Travelers and Lloyd's held their AGMs as the World Meteorological Organization’s announced a 66% chance that we will experience a year in which global warming reaches 1.5°C before 2027. Unlike French reinsurer SCOR (see below), the management of these insurers stuck to their business as usual strategies, continuing to underwrite fossil fuels while disregarding Indigenous Peoples' right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent. Indigenous leaders and other activists made it clear that they will not accept such an abdication of responsibility, and students informed them that they won't work for climate wreckers. Fossil fuel insurers are in for a wild ride.

SCOR will no longer cover new gas fields
May 25, 2023


Under the leadership of its new CEO Thierry Léger, French reinsurer SCOR announced at its AGM today that it will no longer cover new gas field development projects. In an initial response, Reclaim Finance welcomed the new climate commitments and called on SCOR to also exclude new liquefied natural gas terminals to align with the International Energy Agency's 1.5°C scenario projections.

Won't work for climate wreckers, UK students tell fossil fuel insurers

May 24, 2023


“You hold the cards", António Guterres told students last May: "Don’t work for climate wreckers!" Today, 500 students from 11 prominent British universities followed the advice of the UN Secretary General  and informed Lloyd’s of London, Hiscox, Beazley, Brit and other fossil fuel insurers that they won't work for them if they insure new fossil fuel expansion projects such as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline and the Rosebank oil field. 


Greenpeace exposes insurers of North Sea oil and gas expansion

May 24, 2023


Ensuring Disaster, a new Greenpeace report, today identified the 69 companies which insure the massive expansion of oil and gas extraction in the Norwegian North Sea. The list is led by Lloyd's syndicates but also includes prominent public brands such as AIG, Allianz, AXA, Liberty Mutual, SCOR, Tokio Marine and Zurich. “These insurers are accomplices in climate crimes", Greenpeace campaigner Andreas Randøy warned.

Political obstruction won't stop shift away from fossil fuels
May 10, 2023

Munich Re, Zurich, Hannover Re, SCOR, and Swiss Re, which write 28-45% of their premiums in the U.S., have left the Net Zero Insurance Alliance due to the political pressures of the fossil fuel lobby. Whether they are NZIA members or not, campaigners will hold these companies to account for their climate commitments. Meanwhile, new insurers are joining the NZIA, and others are adopting new fossil fuel restrictions.

Talanx adopts new oil and gas restrictions
May 2, 2023

On May 2, Germany’s Talanx, the world’s 20th biggest property & casualty insurer, adopted a new oil and gas exit policy, demonstrating insurers’ continued momentum away from fossil fuels. The policy rules out support for most new oil and gas extraction projects, pipelines directly linked to new oil extraction and new oil-fired power plants, but not mid- and downstream gas projects

Faith leaders ask Lloyd's to end support for fossil fuel expansion
April 24, 2023

Writing in the London Times on 24 April, 24 prominent British faith leaders called on Lloyd's of London to “show leadership” by ending insurance for all new fossil fuel projects."There is no longer any possible moral justification for continuing to profit from fossil fuel expansion when the evidence of its catastrophic impacts is so clear", the faith leaders wrote.

CATCH US IN PERSON

We’d love to see you at these upcoming insurance conferences:

IN OTHER NEWS

ICYMI:

Over 500 British students informed Lloyd’s and other fossil fuel insurers that they won’t work for climate wreckers:

Follow @LetsStopEACOPUK and @StopCambo on Instagram for more updates!






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