News & Analysis
March 31, 2026
More than two-thirds of New Yorkers support efforts to make Big Oil pay for home insurance costs that are rising as a result of climate disasters, according to a new poll from the Center for Climate Integrity and Data For Progress.
New York lawmakers have joined officials in California and Hawaiʻi in considering efforts to make large oil and gas giants pay their fair share of the financial consequences of climate change. Senate Bill 8585 and Assembly Bill 9279 would empower the stateʻs attorney general to take large oil and gas corporations to court to recover the costs of major weather disasters made worse by climate change.
The new poll shows that New Yorkers are feeling the pinch of higher property insurance costs and worsening climate disasters and want state leaders to do more — including holding Big Oil accountable.
More than 1 in 4 voters (27%) report that rising costs have led them to research other home insurance providers or policies, and 1 in 10 have gone so far as to switch providers.
More than half of New York voters (54%) say their home or renters insurance bill has risen over the past year, including 68% of homeowners.
A majority of New York voters (56%) also say state lawmakers should focus more on ensuring homeowner's insurance is affordable,
Nearly two-thirds of New York voters (64%) say the number of extreme weather events — like flash floods, hurricanes, heat waves, and droughts — has increased over the past five years.
Nearly 7 in 10 New York voters (69%) say large oil and gas companies are very or somewhat responsible for climate change and worsening extreme weather disasters.
More than two thirds of New Yorkers support efforts to recover the costs of climate-driven extreme weather disasters from Big Oil corporations most responsible for the problem:
Home insurance premiums are rising twice as fast as inflation nationwide, as insurers pass the escalating costs of extreme weather disasters on to their customers through higher rates. In New York, the average homeowner is paying $1,000 more annually since Hurricane Ida — made worse by climate change — caused about $9 billion in damage in the state.
And it’s not just affecting homeowners. The cost of insuring a multifamily building more than doubled in Brooklyn between 2020 and 2023. Landlords are increasingly passing those costs onto tenants through higher rents, fueling the stateʻs housing affordability crisis.
At a New York State Senate hearing last November, insurance industry representatives said increasingly damaging weather events are a core driver of higher premiums. According to testimony from the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, New York did not experience more than three billion-dollar weather events in a single year between 1980 to 2003. But in 2024 the state saw 10 separate natural disasters that each caused over a billion dollars in inflation-adjusted losses.
There’s no mystery who’s to blame for this: Decades of scientific research has shown that fossil fuel pollution is warming the atmosphere and supercharging wildfires, floods, and storms. Big Oil knew decades ago that their products would cause potentially “catastrophic” extreme weather events. But rather than change course, they engaged in a decades-long campaign to deceive the public about their products’ contribution to climate change — thwarting efforts to transition to clean energy. That deception continues today, with Big Oil vastly overstating their clean energy investments while expanding their production of fossil fuels.
This polling shows that strong majorities of New Yorkers think the oil giants driving the climate crisis — and lying to the public about it — should be chipping in to cover its growing costs, rather than asking everyday families to shoulder the burden by paying more for home insurance.
