Washington residents sue Big Oil for fueling insurance crisis

Washington residents are arguing that Big Oil’s “coordinated and deliberate scheme to hide the truth about climate change and the effects of burning fossil fuels” has led to escalating home insurance costs, according to a class action lawsuit filed last week. The suit names ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and other fossil fuel majors.

The federal class action lawsuit is the first of its kind, aiming to hold oil companies accountable not just for their decades of climate deception, but for the resulting insurance crisis that has stemmed from more frequent and severe weather disasters. Evergreen state residents Richard Kennedy and Margaret Hazard, the two plaintiffs currently signed onto the class action suit, have experienced significant increases in home insurance premiums since 2017. Kennedy’s insurance premium increased by 113% and Hazard’s premium has doubled in that time frame. On average, Washington home owners’ insurance rates have increased by 51% in the past six years, according to the filing. 

The lawsuit argues that Big Oil companies took from Big Tobacco’s playbook, launching a multi-million dollar campaign of climate deception to mislead the public on the reality of climate change and the harms of fossil fuels. The class action lawsuit points to the same evidence of Big Oil’s deception as the dozens of climate accountability cases brought by communities throughout the country that aim to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its lies. As those cases get closer to trial, fossil fuel lobbyists have been trying to secure a legal shield from Congress that would block efforts to hold Big Oil companies accountable. 

The class action lawsuit underscores the growing understanding of Big Oil’s role in fueling extreme weather disasters — and the vast impacts the climate crisis has on our economic systems. As insurance premiums skyrocket across the country and insurers-of-last-resort buckle under the financial strain of increasingly common mass weather disasters, individuals and policymakers are seeking out ways to take the burden off taxpayers and make the polluters who fueled this insurance crisis pay their fair share. Bills introduced in California, Hawaiʻi, and New York this year all work to ensure that the very fossil fuel companies — who made a fortune creating the conditions that led to the insurance crisis — pay their fair share of the massive costs hitting communities across the nation in the wake of climate disasters. 

“Insurance is ‘canary in the coal mine’ for the climate crisis,” said Dave Jones, former California Insurance Commissioner, at a recent hearing on New York’s proposed bill. “And the canary is dying.”