Liberty Mutual is one of the world’s largest insurers of coal, oil, and gas.
Why insurance?
Every new pipeline, coal mine, and fracking well needs insurance
With Liberty Mutual’s support, fossil fuel companies are digging new coal mines, building pipelines, and expanding oil and gas production in some of the most sensitive ecosystems in the world, often without the consent of impacted communities.
We don’t have time to wait.
The climate crisis isn’t some future threat. It is here now.
Unprecedented natural disasters are the new normal: Wildfires destroy entire communities. Massive hurricanes thrash coastal cities. Rapidly melting polar ice caps cause flooding around the globe.
These climate disasters will only grow more frequent and more devastating unless we take action, fast. The climate cannot afford any more coal, oil, and gas infrastructure, yet Liberty Mutual is insuring the global expansion of fossil fuels.
Liberty’s role
Liberty Mutual is insuring and investing in dangerous fossil fuel projects across the globe, including:
TAR SANDS PIPELINES
like Trans Mountain
COAL POWER
in Southeast Asia
FRACKED GAS
wells, pipelines, and export terminals
Liberty Mutual knows better: insurance is, after all, the business of risk management. As climate-related disasters threaten its bottom line, Liberty is already adjusting to a warming world by withdrawing coverage from wildfire-affected regions and flood zones.
The back of the pack
Insurance giants like Swiss Re, AXA, and Zurich have seen the writing on the wall and are starting to end support for oil and gas expansion. By contrast, analysis from Rainforest Action Network reveals that Liberty Mutual’s coal policy has massive loopholes that allow it to insure new coal mines and power plants, and the company has no restrictions on insuring oil and gas.
Globally, more than 40 insurers have made commitments to limit coal insurance, and more than a dozen have restricted oil and gas insurance to some extent. Liberty Mutual must match and exceed its leading peers and adopt policies that meet the scale and urgency of the climate crisis.
Liberty must stop supporting fossil fuel expansion that pollutes communities, violates Indigenous rights, and threatens our future.
"Liberty Mutual’s empty promises and half measures are simply unacceptable. By continuing to insure major fossil fuel projects and carbon polluters, Liberty Mutual is complicit in the environmental injustice and harm affecting frontline communities from Chelsea to Chinatown here in the Massachusetts 7th, and Indigenous communities across the globe."
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley
US Representative, Massachusetts 7th District
"Liberty Mutual should follow the lead of others in the insurance industry. Some have begun to move more aggressively on climate change, halting investments in coal and tar sands, and refusing to insure the aggressive expansion of the industry."
Bill McKibben
Author, environmentalist, and founder of Third Act
“It’s time for Liberty to start listening to Indigenous Peoples, to climate scientists, and to citizens that are raising their voices and demanding that they stop insuring fossil fuels and instead insure our collective futures."