The insurance industry is a key driver of climate chaos. While insurance companies deem neighborhoods, cities, and even entire states as too risky to insure due to climate risks — they’re continuing to insure the very fossil fuel companies and projects that exacerbate those very risks.
One of those insurers is US insurance giant Chubb, which is also one of the major backers of methane export terminal expansion across the US Gulf Coast. Fortunately, our campaign on Chubb is gaining momentum, and we’re celebrating two major steps in the right direction:
- Chubb is no longer insuring Calcasieu Pass LNG
- It has ruled out the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP)
Years of pressure from Gulf frontline communities and activists across the world are having an impact! Here’s a quick recap of some of the strategies from the last 6 months that are building this momentum: grassroots pressure, protests, investigative research, direct engagement, and media and advertising.
Grassroots Pressure
Last December, dozens of Southwest Louisiana fishing families gathered for Fisherman Involved In Sustaining Our Heritage (FISH)’s annual holiday party. Among the abundant shrimp gumbo was something a little different this year: community members mailed dozens of holiday cards to Chubb’s Board of Directors. They included personal messages, calling on Board Members to show compassion and stop insuring Calcasieu Pass LNG and Cameron LNG, the methane export terminals in their community that are impacting their health, loved ones, and livelihoods.
Fisherfolk followed up the holiday cards with additional personal letters with their shared demands for action from the company.
“I understand the business of insurance—it’s about risk management. I ask you: what greater risk is there than dying waters and food sources? Then communities like mine, where generations of small-scale shrimpers, crabbers, and fishers are forced out of work? I’m not asking for handouts or sympathy—I’m asking you to recognize that the project you’re insuring is fueling a crisis that maybe you can ignore, but we can’t.” – Solomon Williams, Jr., Oyster Fishermen, excerpt from a personal letter sent to Chubb Board Members
Solidarity Support
Thousands of RAN supporters showed up in Chubb inboxes and mailboxes solidarity:
- Sent over 130,000 emails to Chubb’s Board with the community’s demands
- Sent personalized eCards to Board Members to stop sinking Southwest Louisiana
- Took over Chubb’s “Customer Care” email, demanding they care about people and planet
- Submitted messages that resulted in 5,000 postcards mailed to the homes of Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg and other Board Members
Jewish leaders and rabbis from across the country also answered the call for solidarity, signing onto a letter to Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg, appealing to Jewish values to take just climate action.
Protests
For the second year in a row, RAN and our fisherfolk partners disrupted the Chubb Classic, a high-profile golf tournament at a ritzy Florida resort attended by Chubb’s top executives and their corporate clients. This year, corporate box seat audience members were flooded with a flurry of fake cash featuring Greenberg’s face. A banner with the message “Chubb: Stop Insuring Methane” was also dropped on the 18th hole.
This message also hit close to home for Board members, literally. An impacted Louisiana fisherman personally hand delivered a letter to the Florida home of Chubb Lead Independent Director, Michael Connors.
Then, in April, allies in New York City picketed outside the Manhattan apartments of the CEO and Board Member, David Sidwell. In May, during Chubb’s Annual Shareholder Meeting, solidarity protests took place outside their new corporate office in New York City calling on Chubb to stop insuring methane. This set the stage for an even larger Gulf resident-led protest outside the same office (and even visited the CEO’s home nearby) as part of Stop Billionaire Summer. Residents from Freeport, Texas, who are impacted by the Chubb-insured Freeport LNG, hand-delivered a petition with over 10,000 signatures from RAN supporters demanding they stop insuring the terminal.
Direct Engagement
All the grassroots pressure and personal appeals paid off – Chubb agreed to meet with impacted fisherfolk and hear their stories and concerns directly.
Additionally, our Swiss partners at Campax attended the Chubb Annual General Meeting in Zurich in May. They posed hard-hitting questions directly to the CEO and top executives in front of their shareholders about their support for methane terminals and pending updates to their outdated biodiversity policy.
Investigative Research
In February, our investigative research discovered through public records requests that Chubb was insuring Calcasieu Pass LNG, one of the largest methane export terminals in the country.
Then, after RAN and our global allies exposed Chubb and other insurers, and our collective pressure to get Chubb to stop supporting the terminal, our researchers found that Chubb no longer held its $1.5 billion primary insurance policy after it was set to renew mid-March. This big win for frontline communities in Louisiana was announced in exclusive coverage from Inside Climate News.
All of this is knowledge and exposure is possible through countless public records requests, and meticulously detailed first in our 2024 report Risk Exposure: The Insurers Secretly Backing The Methane Gas Boom in the US Gulf South, and then updated in No More Sacrifice Zones: Risks of Methane Export Financing in Southwest Louisiana in April 2025, that spell out to financiers the risks associated with Gulf methane.
Media and Ads
This summer, ads started popping in New York neighborhood newspapers of Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg and Board Member David Sidwell. Next to stories about the recent girls middle school basketball game appeared ads calling on the decision makers to stop insuring methane export terminals across Southwest Louisiana.
These were accompanied by graphics across LinkedIn with the same message, as well as flyers and posters plastered around Greenberg and Sidwell’s NYC neighborhoods.
Phew! It’s been an action-packed campaign these last several months, it’s encouraging to see our efforts deliver some wins for frontline communities and build momentum for the broader movement for climate justice. We’re just getting started, and are hopeful for more successes for people and planet in as our campaign continues. You can join us right now by signing this petition demanding Chubb to stop insuring methane export terminals in the Gulf.
