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The global insurance industry is a massive paradox. On the one hand, they are bearing some of the massive financial costs of climate breakdown, and have raised the alarm about increased disasters making some areas 'uninsurable'.
On the other hand they provide the insurance on which the fossil fuel industry depends, underwriting destruction now, and helping make this future inevitable. Campaigners have focused both on urging insurers to rule out specific projects - such as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline - and on adopting policies to rule out fossil fuel insurance. Researchers found that insurers restricting insurance to coal mines contributed to the shift away from coal in the US.
Not all insurers are equal though. The Boycott Bloody Insurance campaign has a table which rates insurers based on their involvement with fossil fuel companies, detention & surveillance contractors, military companies complicit in the genocide in Gaza and controversial weapons such as nuclear weapons. It also includes information (where available) about insurance companies' investments in these areas.
We've just used the brokers, Planet Protection, to switch our own insurance (employer liability and public protection) to one of the insurers who are rated green (no known involvement in underwriting destructive companies).
If you are connected to any organisation or business who might be interested in switching to ethical insurance and you would like to build momentum to make ethical insurance provision a mainstream option and increase pressure on insurance companies who are underwriting death and destruction, then get in touch with the Boycott Bloody Insurance campaign.
Photo above from Uganda during the Insure Our Future global week of action