Underwrite Earth for a Better Future
“Wake up, the house is flooding,” my mother said as she burst into my room one night in May 2015. I quickly packed a bag and held my older brother’s hand as we waded through waist-deep water to reach higher ground. The current was strong enough that if he had let go, I would have been swept away. Two years later, during Hurricane Harvey, I was evacuated on a raft in the pouring rain. The next morning, I saw that my new home and rebuilt neighborhood had flooded again.
My story is just one of many. Together, the large number of people affected by natural disasters shows that our climate is in peril– and more and more Jewish communities are facing the consequences. As Jews face the effects of climate change, a movement of Jewish youth has decided to take action, targeting companies that insure fossil fuel infrastructure.
Insurance companies, the same ones that insure your homes, also underwrite fossil fuel projects. The cruelty of underwriting fossil fuel insurance is that insurance companies are supposed to give people peace of mind. If their lives are turned upside down by a horrible flood, fire, earthquake, or similar natural disaster, they will still be financially protected from the damage. However, by continuing to underwrite oil, gas, and coal projects across the country, insurance companies are enabling the fossil fuel industry, which contributes to climate change and worsens natural disasters.
What’s more, as climate change intensifies and destroys people’s property, insurers are starting to bear the financial brunt of their actions. As a result, they are increasingly dropping people on the frontlines of the climate crisis from coverage, which has impacted Jewish communities from California to Texas to Florida. Insurers are hurting people and losing money while doing it.
Fossil fuel infrastructure requires insurance to move forward. As the federal government moves to expedite oil and gas production, protesting fossil fuel underwriting is now strategically critical to climate activism.
A campaign called Underwrite Earth by the Jewish Youth Climate Movement, a project of nonprofit Adamah, has identified insurance companies as a key target. Pressuring fossil fuel insurers has a proven track record. As young Jewish activists growing up amid both environmental and financial instability, we see ourselves as uniquely positioned to pressure insurance leaders, specifically the Jewish leaders and executives of AIG, Chubb, and Liberty Mutual, to refuse to insure existing and new fossil fuel projects and remove their assets from investment in fossil fuel companies.
However, it is not just young Jewish activists who should care about this issue. All of us, as Jews, should be concerned about this. We have an obligation not only to care for the earth but also for those around us. Judaism compels us to take care of our environment and communities in times of damage and loss. While insurance companies claim to do the same, their current refusal to restrict the underwriting of pipelines actively harms our communities, impeding this commitment.
The Underwrite Earth campaign launched on Tu B’Shvat 2025, the Jewish New Year for the trees, and a time to refocus on protecting nature. Since then, JYCM has mobilized intergenerational Jewish leaders, activists, clergy, artists, and communities. Now after this year’s Tu B’Shvat we are calling on you to tell insurers to restrict underwriting of existing and future fossil fuel infrastructure. Talk to people about fossil fuel underwriting and its disastrous effects, call your insurance company and ask why they are underwriting projects that end up raising premiums, and protest against insurance executives who turn a blind eye to the damage they are causing. Join us in fulfilling our obligation to fight the damage being done to our communities by the very companies meant to protect us.
