The campaign against bloody insurers

In recent years, conversations about ethical finance have increasingly focused on banks, pension funds and investors. Yet one powerful sector has often remained out of the spotlight: insurance. 

Behind almost every destructive industrial project stands an insurer shielding the project from accountability for its toll on communities and nature. 

Boycott Bloody Insurance (BBI) is a growing campaign determined to change that reality. By urging organisations to boycott the worst insurers and switch to ethical insurance providers, BBI is challenging the industry to transform not just its policies, but its practices.

The insurance industry wields enormous structural power: without insurance large-scale projects cannot secure investment, obtain permits or proceed to construction.

BBI calls on a wide range of institutions – places of worship, businesses, educational institutions, charities and trade unions – to use their collective power as customers. 

By refusing to take cover with companies that underwrite fossil fuels, weapons manufacturing, and migrant surveillance and detention, organisations can withdraw social legitimacy and financial support from lethal industries, while actively backing insurers that align with justice, sustainability, and human dignity.

Beyond policy: what BBI is campaigning for

Boycott Bloody Insurance is not simply calling for better environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies or greener branding. 

Most major insurers greenwash their work by introducing ethical policies that exclude some forms of insurance for damaging sectors like fossil fuels but that contain major exceptions or loopholes. For example, they might rule out insuring fossil fuel projects directly, but not the companies behind them. 

Some insurers, such as Zurich, rule out new coal, oil and gas, but continue existing contracts – and even flout their own policies. This implies that the insurers can have the best looking ESG policies and simultaneously be the world’s largest insurers of deadly industries. 

The boycott aims to apply financial and reputational pressure to enforce more meaningful change. It focuses on pushing companies to take actual action, rather than just creating weak policies. 

A change in the insurance system could mean that money would be redirected towards socially and environmentally beneficial companies: renewable energy, community infrastructure, care services and low-carbon innovation. This shift would have knock-on effects throughout the wider economy, influencing banks, investors and policymakers who rely on insurance markets as signals of acceptable risk.

Building momentum

Campaigners connected to BBI are building momentum across regions, work sectors and faith communities, mobilising the institutions they are part of or connected to. 

From local churches to student groups, the campaign is rooted in everyday relationships and responsibilities. Campaigners start conversations where they already have trust and influence: for example at a trustee meeting, a sustainability committee, a union branch, or a faith council. 

Non-profits have played a leading role as the first organisations to make the switch.

Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS), a national student network pushing universities to divest from fossil fuels, moved their insurance to a more ethical provider in November 2025. They say that they wanted their insurance decisions to reflect their role as a campaign group.

“By switching insurance, we’re showing that it’s possible to align our operations with our values and take tangible action against the climate crisis,”

says Jamie Agombar, Executive Director of SOS UK. 

“We hope others across the education sector will join us in building a financial system that protects, rather than threatens, young people’s futures.”

Some companies are also following suit. Toast Brewing, an ethical brewery known for turning surplus bread into award-winning beer, made the switch to ethical insurance last year. For them, it was an extension of values they were already living every day.

“We’d used an ethical bank from the outset, and that felt good,” says Louisa Ziane, Toast’s co-founder and COO. “But insurance was the missing piece. When we realised that mainstream insurers often underwrite fossil fuel expansion or arms manufacturers, it felt completely incompatible with who we are. 

“Switching insurers was a no-brainer; we didn’t want our success to quietly prop up industries that devastate people and the planet.”

The charity, Migrants’ Rights Network, says that for them the decision carried deep emotional weight. Many large insurers provide cover to migrant detention centres, shielding them from legal and financial accountability. 

“We work with people who’ve been traumatised by detention,” says Fizza Qureshi, CEO of the organisation. “Once we learned that some insurers actively support these centres, we couldn’t look away. We also couldn’t ignore those [insurance companies that are] complicit in forcibly displacing migrants because they support the fossil fuel industry. 

“Ethical insurance felt essential. It gave us peace of mind knowing that our operating costs weren’t, even indirectly, linked to human rights abuses.”

These three organisations are not outliers. They are among the first in a growing trend of organisations re-examining who insures them and what their insurers support. 

Real-world impacts: stopping destructive projects

The power of insurance pressure is not theoretical. Campaigners have already helped secure major wins that demonstrate how targeted action can stall destructive projects.

Globally, campaigners encouraged 45 insurers to rule out support for the Adani Carmichael coal mine in Australia by 2021, helping to massively reduce the scope of the coal mine from a planned $26.5 billion project to a $2 billion development. Similarly, by 2025 thirty insurers had ruled out the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), which transports oil from Uganda to Tanzania. 

These decisions have had significant consequences. Both projects have faced repeated delays and escalating costs, with insurance withdrawals playing a critical role in undermining their viability.

For communities on the ground, the stakes are enormous. The Adani coal mine threatened land, water and livelihoods, while EACOP is affecting over 100,000 people across Uganda and Tanzania. 

Insurance pressure has also contributed to insurers withdrawing support for the Trans Mountain Expansion Pipeline in Canada and the West Cumbria Coal Mine in the UK. In both cases, the loss of insurance backing was a key factor in preventing these fossil fuel projects from going ahead. 

Every switch sends a signal. 

Together, they build the pressure needed to transform an industry whose decisions shape our shared future. Boycott Bloody Insurance is proving that when organisations act in line with their values, insurance can become not a silent enabler of harm, but a powerful lever for justice.