As climate floods in Spain claimed hundreds of lives, thousands of us demanded insurers stop enabling the industries that are destroying our world.

Our week of action against the insurance industry starting 28 October 2024 was part of an ongoing international campaign which is forcing the sector to pull the plug on the fossil fuel criminals. Insurance companies, their directors and the people that staff them are feeling the heat from our actions and withdrawing support from carbon bomb projects and new oil and gas generally.

After thousands of us took to the streets in February, giant global insurer Zurich capitulated to our pressure and announced they were pulling out of all new oil and gas projects. What we do is working: it gets results, it makes our world safer, and it’s why we won’t stop.

So, in October,  we launched an expanded campaign called Insure Our Survival, focusing on mobilising rebel creativity and courage to target the key insurers, reinsurers and underwriters across the UK. Our non-violent direct action and powerful storytelling rallied around a single demand: stop insuring all new oil and gas projects and infrastructure.

The week started with three days of mass action across the City of London where we made the connection between flooding, food shortages and civil unrest. Our message for the insurance industry was: this is what’s coming unless you pull the plug on fossil fuels.

Extreme flooding is happening now all around the world. The horrific recent flooding in Spain where the death toll is in the hundreds, and almost a hundred more people unaccounted for, left people feeling utterly helpless and the emergency service unprepared and overwhelmed.

We cannot ignore what experts say, and what history has proven. 40% of food experts believe civil unrest in the UK in the next 10 years is either possible (38%) or more likely than not (3%) and that the most likely trigger for that unrest would be shortages of popular carbohydrates such as wheat, bread, pasta, and cereal, most likely caused by extreme weather including storm surges, flooding, snow and drought.

In England this year, the harvest was the second worst on record because of wet weather. The harvest of staple crops generally was down a fifth. We have been warned.

The week started with a pink lifeboat held aloft as hundreds of Extinction Rebellion activists wearing extreme wet weather gear and holding smoke flares paraded through the City of London before staging a die-in and crime scene at the heart of the City’s insurance offices.

Numerous insurance office occupations followed. The iconic Walkie Talkie building was occupied – chosen because it is home to insurers Ascot, Talbot, Chaucer, Markel, Allied World, CNA Hardy, Tokio Marine Kiln, Sirius International and Lancashire Syndicates. 

Christian Climate Action occupied the headquarters of Hiscox, an insurer that is refusing to rule out insuring the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline ‘carbon bomb’ project. Medical professionals from Health for XR targeted insurers AXA, to raise the alarm about the health impacts of the climate crisis the insurance industry is enabling. The offices of Allianz insurers were also occupied. 

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. The PRA could halt new fossil fuel projects – but they’re choosing profit over planet.

Outside the Royal Exchange, speeches by Global South climate activists, XR Scientists, XR co-founder Gail Bradbrook, music by Rebel and the Banned, and theatrics from the Crude Oil Mechanics drove home the message that extreme weather is wrecking lives and causing mass death and that the insurance industry must shoulder some of the blame.

Mass phone calls, email and social media storms organised by Digital Rebellion saw insurance executives bombarded with demands from around the world to drop their fossil fuel clients, and pull out of ‘carbon bomb’ projects that are flooding our homes.

On Tuesday six people were arrested as the offices of giant insurance brokers WTW were covered with fly posters and sprayed with chalk paint. One of WTW’s own analysts co-authored a report warning that climate crisis-driven extreme weather has a high likelihood of causing food shortages and social unrest in the UK. And yet the firm has not ruled out brokering insurance for the oil, gas and coal which is causing the climate emergency.

Meanwhile, another iconic building, the Gherkin, was occupied as it houses the HQ  of the global reinsurance company SwissRe. Outside a ‘soft blockade’ of 20 XR activists formed a ring on the pavement in front of the main entrance. They greeted insurance workers with placards warning about food shortages, price spikes, the threat to UK farming, and the withdrawl of insurance from home that are considered vulnerable to climate disasters.

To make the message even more graphic, a semi-circle of protesters held up huge photographic images of people in the UK and across the world amidst the wreckage of their homes and lives after climate crisis-driven extreme weather and flooding. The globally-renowned artist and photographer Gideon Mendel, who took the pictures, was in attendance, capturing the scenes on camera and supporting the protesters.

Hundreds of activists marched through the streets of the City behind a banner demanding “STOP INSURING HUNGER”. They were led by a wheelbarrow holding a giant potato to satirically symbolise the coming flood-driven breakdown of the UK’s food and farming system and the price and hunger crisis that will follow. Dozens of activists queued with empty bowls in front of the giant potato close to the Lloyds of London building – only to be given a single pea each.

With Halloween approaching, small children in ghost costumes symbolising the young lives being lost to climate crisis-driven famine visited insurance offices in the City with their parents from XR Families.

On Wednesday one person was arrested as ten XR activists in business suits occupied the offices of insurers AIG Talbot. Later, three Extinction Rebellion protestors scaled the entrance to the famous Walkie Talkie building. The trio took positions above the main revolving entrance doors and put up banners reading “Insure Our Survival” and “Insuring fossil fuels = Climate Chaos”. 

Meanwhile, eight university students from the Education Climate Coalition staged a protest outside of the offices of QBE Underwriting and Aspen Management Agency in Fenchurch Street warning insurers: “Stop insuring fossil fuel projects or graduates will refuse to work for you.” The recruitment crisis is a major concern in the industry with one in three 18 to 24 year olds having “climate quit” companies with poor environmental policies.

Hundreds of XR protestors marched through the streets of London for a third day staging theatrical events highlighting the social collapse and unrest that experts are now predicting.

As it was budget day, Four Insurers of the Apocalypse strode into the City of London with three carrying red briefcases marked “FLOOD”, “FAMINE” and “WAR”, while the fourth lit the fuse on a giant carbon bomb to overheat the planet. 

Nearby, a dirty insurer in a gas mask was spotted lounging on a green Lamborghini and reading Insure Our Survival’s truth telling tabloid, The Sin. In a world exclusive, the only red top not owned by a business-as-usual billionaire revealed that insurers are boosting their profits by insuring fossil fuel crooks to flood our homes – then charging us more for flood insurance.  

Rounding things off, scores of zombies staged a “Discobedience” protest in a choreographed reworking of  Michael Jackson’s hit single “Thriller” renamed “Driller Killer”. The dissident dancing took place outside the offices of Marshall McLennan, the firm who are currently underwriting the EACOP pipeline despite a staff revolt. Before it has even been built, EACOP has displaced tens of thousands of people, depriving them of both their land and their livelihoods. If it was ever built and operational would be complicit in locking in irreversible climate change.

Across the three days we had hundreds of conversations with insurance employees at all levels of seniority and handed out several thousand flyers inviting them to “be a climate hero”. Monthly calls are building an insurer-led group to work for positive change.

If you work in insurance and are sick of insuring fossil fuels, contact our confidential Insurance Climate Hero Hotline for support, advice and a listening ear: insureoursurvival@extinctionrebellion.uk

We also had an advertising van playing a film which identified the CEOs of leading UK-based insurers as climate criminals, touring the City of London and taking up residence outside coffee shops. Here is the film the van was showing:

Over the rest of the week, over 30 local XR groups then took up the baton with actions against insurance offices in towns and cities around the UK.

Hundreds of rebels in Birmingham decked out in fire and flood-themed costumes, along with drummers and a giant ‘oily monster’ puppet, paid a visit to the offices of seven major fossil fuel insurers.

Dressed as cleaners, scrubbers in Bath literally ‘greenwashed’ the offices of Howden insurers who pay lip-service to sustainable credentials but continue to insure fossil fuels.

A Halloween zombie ‘discobedience’ dance in Glasgow drew widespread media attention as zombies death-danced to “Driller Killer” outside insurance offices

Outside an insurer in Yeovil, skeletons could be seen during their ghoulish theatrical occupation and die-in.

In Tunbridge Wells, drummers, flyers, and conversations competed with each other to be heard, and that’s what many did: hear for the first time how damaging and deadly fossil fuel activity can only go ahead if backed and funded by some of the world’s largest and leading insurance companies.

We are living in a time where scientists describe life on our planet as ‘perilous’.

The week of actions by Extinction Rebellion’s Insure Our Survival campaign demanded that insurers stop insuring all new oil, gas and coal projects. We won’t stop until they do.

Our ultimate aim is to force all insurers, reinsurers and brokers to quit the fossil fuel industry completely and for good.