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Extinction Rebellion (XR) campaigners are spending this week occupying the offices of major insurance firms in the City of London, demanding they stop insuring fossil fuel projects.
On Wednesday morning, climate activists occupied the offices of major insurers AIG Talbot in the City, as the movement’s ‘Insure Our Survival’ campaign staged its third day of protests in the UK’s leading financial district.
XR is demanding insurers stop insuring the oil, gas and coal projects “causing extreme weather like the terrifying floods currently devastating cities in Spain.”
Ten XR activists dressed in business suits entered the lobby of offices in Fenchurch Street where AIG Talbot – major insurers of fossil fuel projects – are headquartered.
They unfurled banners reading “AIG Stop Insuring climate criminals’, read out a statement demanding that the firm immediately stop insuring all fossil fuels, and handed out leaflets to staff asking them to pressure their bosses to “pull the plug on insuring the deadly expansion of oil, gas and coal exploration and production.”
Some of the activists blew up dozens of pink balloons and wrote messages on them “branding AIG’s executives climate criminals and asking them to help save our civilisation, rather than destroy it.”
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Outside the building, other protestors handed out leaflets to staff and held banners reading ‘Insure Our Survival’ and ‘Stop EACOP’, referring to the planned East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline, what XR dubs a “planet-wrecking Carbon bomb that will only be possible if the developers can get insurance.” AIG Talbot has been contacted for comment.
It comes after five protestors were arrested on Tuesday as another insurer’s office was covered in chalk by activists.
The Gherkin building was occupied, and a video van tour of the City of London branded insurance CEOs ‘climate criminals’ on day two of Extinction Rebellion’s Insure Our Survival week.
Three activists in business suits entered the lobby of the glass and steel tower that is the HQ of the global reinsurance company SwissRe, which XR says is “heavily involved in the dirty business of insuring climate breakdown.”
They unfurled banners reading Insure Our Survival and ‘Stop EACOP’, another reference to the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline that insurance would make possible.
Tuesday also saw insurers WTW targeted. Their analysts co-authored a recent report that warned climate crisis-driven floods and extreme weather have a high likelihood of causing food shortages and social unrest in the UK. However, XR argues the firm makes millions from “helping fossil fuel crooks to get insurance to keep digging and drilling for the oil, gas and coal causing the climate emergency.”
Extinction Rebellion activists say it is a mark of “hypocrisy”.
A spokesperson for XR’s Insure Our Survival campaign said: “WTW were targeted because they may be one of the most hypocritical insurers in the UK. Shockingly, their experts publicly state that the climate crisis could cause food shortages and social unrest – and yet they keep sorting the fossil fuel companies with insurance to make the crisis worse and more likely to cost billions of lives.”
Throughout Tuesday, an advertising van playing videos depicting the CEOs of leading UK-based insurers as “climate criminals” toured the City of London.
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Insure Our Survival spokesperson Steve Tooze said: “Famine is already rife in countries in Africa, Asia and South and Central America due to floods and extreme weather caused by the climate crisis. It’s only a matter of time before food shortages and hunger hit the UK too. The floods are also leaving towns, homes, businesses and lives wrecked.
“We’re making it clear to insurers that they have the power to stop us going hungry and having our homes flooded and made uninsurable. They can make it impossible for fossil fuel bosses to keep drilling and digging by pulling the plug on the insurance that covers their huge financial losses if things go wrong.”
He added that unless insurers meet their demand to stop insuring new oil and gas, XR will “keep targeting them with mass non-violent direct action to damage their reputations with the public and business community and hit their share price.”
On Monday, the week of action kicked off as a pink boat sailed through the City of London.
Hundreds of Extinction Rebellion activists occupied buildings, staged “climate crime scenes and mass die”-ins and marched to demand insurers stop “insuring climate breakdown.”
Extinction Rebellion occupied the iconic Walkie Talkie tower, and sailed the pink boat through the streets of the City of London that was made famous in the group’s launch in central London in 2019.
Protesters this time were holding smoke flares and wearing extreme wet weather gear.
The Walkie Talkie building is home to insurers Ascot, Talbot, Chaucer, Markel, Allied World, CNA Hardy, Tokio Marine Kiln, Sirius International and Lancashire Syndicates. Also occupied was 60 Gracechurch Street, where insurers Allianz have offices.
On Monday, supporters of Scientists for XR wearing white lab coats entered the lobby of the Prudential Regulation Authority, the insurance industry’s regulatory body overseen by the Bank of England, on Moorgate. A spokesperson for the group said: “The PRA could halt new fossil fuel projects – but they’re choosing profit over the planet.” The Bank of England refused to comment.
Activists from Christian Climate Action also joined in, staging a protest inside 22 Bishopsgate where Hiscox is headquartered. It is another insurer that activists say is “refusing to rule out insuring the East Africa Crude Oil ‘carbon bomb’ pipeline”.
And at 20 Gracechurch Street, the offices of insurers AXA, medical professionals from Health for XR staged a street picket to express their serious concerns about the health impacts of the climate crisis that the insurance industry is enabling.
Huge lines of workers reportedly formed outside the Walkie Talkie and 22 Bishopsgate as a security clampdown was staged.
Insurance CEOs were warned they would face more actions unless they pull the plug on fossil fuel clients.
Steve Tooze from Insure Our Survival added that the campaign has targeted 52 insurers in total, saying: “We aim to permanently toxify these insurance brands in the minds of the public and the business community, by strongly linking them with the fossil fuel companies who are causing the climate chaos we all see getting worse every day.”
Similar actions are having an effect, they argue. Major insurers Zurich pulled out of new oil and gas projects after a similar week of action in February. Italy’s biggest insurer Generali went a long way to doing the same last week, Tooze claimed.
At least six people have been arrested so far in connection to the protests. Chief Inspector Dan Murphy, of the City of London Police, said: “On Tuesday 29 October, officers arrested five people in connection with criminal damage outside a building on 51 Lime Street. They were all subsequently released.
“On 30 October, a man was arrested at 51 Fenchurch Street on suspicion of breaching court bail conditions.”
The week of action runs until Saturday 2 November, with other UK cities including Glasgow also being targeted.
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The Crisis is Here
Climate-related disruptions are already affecting the UK, with far-reaching consequences for food security and housing stability.
England recently experienced its second-worst harvest on record due to extreme wet weather conditions.
And Latin America is currently facing severe food insecurity due to an intensifying cycle of floods and droughts, according to the World Meteorological Organisation.
The implications extend beyond immediate food production. A coalition of 58 UK food security experts recently issued a stark warning about the potential for civil unrest due to food shortages, suggesting that the combination of diminished harvests and global supply chain disruptions could create significant social tensions.
The crisis is also affecting the housing sector. The Council of Estate Management reports that an increasing number of UK homes are becoming uninsurable due to their location in flood-prone areas.
This development creates a potentially devastating feedback loop: as climate change increases flooding risks, more properties become uninsurable, potentially leading to both housing market instability and increased vulnerability for homeowners in affected areas.
The week of action has received very little coverage, perhaps partly as this is the week of Labour’s first Budget in 15 years.
Several firms and the Association of British Insurers have been contacted for comment.
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