This is a massive victory ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ 

Trans Mountain thought that if its insurers were kept hidden, they would be protected from public pressure. But what they failed to understand about campaigning is that when you get crystal clear evidence your strategy is working, you don’t back off – you go even harder.

The CER ended up granting Trans Mountain’s request (because, capitalism) – but this did nothing to protect its insurers from public scrutiny. In fact, all it did was immortalize the pipeline’s already known insurers, and guarantee that we would continue to target them until they publicly cut ties with the pipeline.

And so we did just that. Over the last few months, three more major insurers have cut ties with the Trans Mountain pipeline – including two members of the Lloyd’s marketplace (Argo and Cincinnati Global). Our sources indicate that Lloyd’s subsidiaries might be some of Trans Mountain’s biggest insurers since Zurich dropped out.

Ed, this is a huge win. A total of fifteen insurers have now pledged to never do business with Trans Mountain, and nine of those companies have policies restricting any future coverage of other polluting tar sands projects.

Q. How the heck did we pull this off, not just with one company, but fifteen of them?

A. With a whole lot of people power. That’s right, these wins would never have happened without people like you on board.

While also braving a global pandemic, mind-blowing numbers of Stand members like you took action from home to step up the pressure on insurance giants. Together we made sure our targets were feeling the heat from all directions – on social media, in their email inboxes, on their phone lines – literally everywhere. Stand members even went so far as to record over 50 personal video messages for insurance executives. Thanks to donations from this community, we were then able to edit a punchy cut of these videos to advertise on LinkedIn, specifically targeting senior executives at Chubb and Lloyd’s. The video was viewed over 80,000 times!

Once the world started opening up, this movement ramped up the pressure in-person too with a global week of action. Creative protests took place in 26 locations around the world – all the way from Canada and the U.S. to Sierra Leone, Germany, the Marshall Islands, and more.

The incredible momentum behind this campaign has also put the insurance industry in the media spotlight. Dozens of articles covering the campaign have been published in business and insurance industry media, as well as mainstream publications. Together we helped shape the conversation about the ongoing climate risk of insuring fossil fuel projects like Trans Mountain – and insurance companies hate getting bad press.

We kept the pressure going on our top insurance targets right until the final deadline this week. We delivered your petition to Chubb’s Vancouver HQ a couple weeks ago, and in the final moments, Stand members helped flood Chubb’s phone lines and inboxes one more time to make sure the company couldn’t ignore our message.

This year has truly been a monumental effort, and I can’t thank you enough Ed, for everything you’ve contributed along the way.

But by now you’re probably wondering, what happens now that Trans Mountain’s insurance deadline has passed?

In previous years we would find out the results of our efforts in April when the insurance certificate was made public. But thanks to Trans Mountain’s sneaky request to the CER, the names of its insurers will be redacted this time around.

All that means is we don’t need to wait until April to relaunch our campaign. We can keep the pressure on insurance targets all year round – and we plan to – until they publicly announce they have dropped Trans Mountain.

How? Some of the things us and our allies are cooking up might be big and flashy – but other tactics will be smaller (though just as strategic). Some volunteers have had great success privately messaging insurance executives on LinkedIn, leading to more than one insurer announcing it would drop the pipeline.

If you want to be kept in the loop about future opportunities to step up your involvement, click here to join our Slack channel (then search for the channel #stop-tmx) as that’s where we’ll post most often about insider opportunities for volunteers.

We’re still going to keep targeting major insurance giants like Chubb, Liberty Mutual, AIG, and remaining members of the Lloyd’s marketplace until they publicly rule out Trans Mountain and all tar sands projects. If you want to get started right away and haven’t yet recorded a video message calling them out – you can do so by clicking here.

I won’t lie to you. Knocking off every single one of Trans Mountain’s insurers and pushing for a transformation of the entire industry is not going to be easy. But you know what? I’m not concerned.

The Stand online community and the global, Indigenous-led movement to stop this pipeline has proved again and again that it is powerful beyond measure. And so, with fifteen insurance companies out of the running and only a handful of big insurers left that will still back tar sands projects like it, we sure aren’t stopping now.

We know our strategy is working – even Trans Mountain admitted it. Together, we can make this dirty pipeline un-insurable. And we won’t stop until we do.

In solidarity,

Sven Biggs
Canadian Oil and Gas Programs Director
Stand.earth