Insurance Companies Are Profiting Big Off of Climate Change
Insurance companies not only offer coverage to fossil fuel projects, but also use millions of people’s premiums to invest in the fossil fuel industry’s expansion. We can’t stop climate change without reeling the insurers in.
A storm-damaged house at a busted levy on the beach after Hurricane Ida on September 4, 2021 in Grand Isle, Louisiana. (Sean Rayford / Getty Images)
The most famous drivers of the climate crisis are well known: fossil fuel companies, Wall Street, science deniers, and the super rich, to name a few. But for decades, another climate villain has lurked in the shadows: the insurance industry that is knowingly ensuring an ecological disaster.
“Without insurance, new coal fired power plants wouldn’t get built. Without insurance, oil refineries wouldn’t refine,” said Douglas Heller, insurance expert at the research and advocacy group Consumer Federation of America. “That doesn’t mean that the insurance industry is solely responsible for fossil fuels. But it’s a part of the equation.”
The problem is not just that insurance companies offer coverage to fossil fuel projects, but they also use millions of people’s premiums to invest in — and provide capital to — the fossil fuel industry’s expansion.
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