Budget Committee Launches Investigation into Major Insurance Companies' Climate Risk Evaluation, Fossil Fuel Support

Hearing

"Any new fossil fuel expansion is incompatible with our climate goals and economic stability. By underwriting and investing in new and expanded fossil fuel projects, U.S. insurers are helping Big Oil bring us closer to the worst runaway climate scenarios, which threaten lives, livelihoods, and the federal budget. That is why I am launching an investigation to obtain key information and internal documents showing how these companies weigh risks to the climate when considering their underwriting and investment decisions. This information is especially relevant as some of these companies begin to pull out of certain markets because they see the coming catastrophic climate risks--despite continuing to provide services to the fossil fuel industry"

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Witnesses have warned that sea level rise and wetter, more intense storms could eventually make more than $1 trillion in coastal real estate uninsurable, and therefore unmortgageable, leading to a coastal property values crash; that more frequent and intense wildfires could result in a similar death spiral for western property in the wildland-urban interface; that climate-related losses are making it harder for the insurance industry to price risk, already resulting in insolvencies among regional insurers; and that, as demand for oil and gas declines, hundreds of billions of dollars in fossil fuel assets may be stranded.

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"...[I]n the United States, the insurance industry continues to support existing and expanded fossil fuel projects with few restrictions in place limiting--or excluding--either. U.S. insurers continue to underwrite polluting projects while making investments in an industry whose continued expansion poses multiple serious dangers to overall economic stability and to insurance services in particular."

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