Hartford, Connecticut was known for decades as “the insurance capital of the world.” Its role has diminished in recent years, but it is still home to several of the largest insurance companies in the U.S., including The Hartford and Travelers.
As both companies held their annual shareholders meetings in mid-May, climate activists gathered outside the two company’s headquarters with banners calling on them to stop insuring fossil fuel projects. Across the U.S. pipelines, methane export terminals and all other fossil fuel infrastructure can’t be built until a company secures insurance coverage. The shareholders advocacy group As You Sow, submitted a resolution to Travelers that “requests the company disclose the expected impact of its climate-related pricing and coverage decisions on the sustainability of its homeowners’ insurance business under various climate scenarios.”
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Helen Humphries, communications coordinator with Connecticut Citizen Action Group, which organized the protest. Here she explains the role of insurance companies driving the climate crisis and talks about the important alliances her group is now building.
Under a number of climate scenarios, Travelers fought very hard to get that off of the ballot, but the SEC did rule that the company needed to face the resolution. I don’t believe that it passed, but it is an important issue that shareholders are starting to really pay attention to and get concerned about. Rightfully so.
We were outside both handing out flyers to folks about that. And then we also did have two activists that were on the inside who are also shareholders. So Tom Swan of Connecticut Citizen Action Group and Steve Simon of Third Act Connecticut both went into the meeting. They asked some questions about climate. They were the only two questions that were asked in the shareholder meeting. And I believe the way that Tom explained it was that there was a lot of distraction and deflection, and they gave kind of a roundabout non-answer that you would expect from someone who doesn’t want to do those sort of things.
MELINDA TUHUS: What is the relationship of these major insurance companies to the fossil fuel industry? Could you just sort of explain that a little bit?
HELEN HUMPHRIES: I mean, when you think about climate change and fossil fuels, you don’t necessarily immediately think of property and casualty insurers when in fact they’re one of the most important cogs in the fossil fuel machine. Fossil fuel projects can’t move forward without investments and insurance. And so, if these fossil fuel projects don’t get insured, they can’t move forward.
And so we’ve been looking to these property and casualty insurers to either divest from their investments or stop their underwriting policies of these fossil fuel projects as it’s completely destroying their bottom line in terms of climate losses. They’re facing billions of dollars in certain markets. And now you’re seeing these property and casualty insurers pull out of entire homeowner markets like in Florida because of the hurricanes, or in California because of the wildfires. And we’re wondering how long until they have to pull out from the entire country.
MELINDA TUHUS: Have you been able to point to any successes in terms of really shining a light on these practices and trying to get them to stop doing some of this stuff?
HELEN HUMPHRIES: So actually, we just had a really great victory in the fact that Chubb Insurance, who was named one of the major insurers on a number of liquified natural gas export project in southwest Louisiana, that they were named as an insurer and they just pulled out due to health concerns.
And so we’re seeing these major insurers see the risks of these LNG terminals or these coal plants or the tar sands pipelines and they’re horrible for the community health. They’re horrible for the environment. There’s these massive communities that are being infected by air pollution and groundwater pollution and all of that kind of stuff. And so I think there are insurers that are starting to see that this is not worth the risk both financially and morally.
And so, Chubb Insurance just pulled out of this LNG project. And so now we’re looking to Connecticut-based insurers like The Hartford, who has been named as a LNG terminal insurer in the South Gulf to follow their lead and see that there are a number of insurers both here in America and also a number of European insurers are far beyond where American insurers are in the fact that they have started divesting and started putting their investments more in solar and wind rather than fossil fuel projects.
These kinds of things can sometimes feel very abstract in terms of fossil fuels and property and casualty insurance and underwriting policies and investments. And it doesn’t really tell you the real harm that this is doing to communities. And so having the folks like R Zane who came up to The Hartford to try and speak with the executives about the damage that these LNG terminals are doing to her community is just incredibly more powerful than just saying, “Divest from fossil fuels.”
And so you can really see just the damage and the harm and the fear in these communities for the future of their children and their grandchildren, and whether or not they’re going to have really bad asthma or they’re going to have toxic drinking water, or they have to be worried about an explosion or the workers that work in these LNG terminals. There are a number of safety concerns around these type of plants that just do real harm to the community.
And so having the frontline communities at these type of rallies or having their voices heard, I think is one of the most powerful things that we can do. And so I would love to continue to amplify those stories of folks who are really hitting home with this type of issue.
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