WASHINGTON, DC – Big Oil just posted some of its highest profits in years, and the insurance industry bankrolling it is charging American homeowners more than ever for the climate damage that industry helps cause. Chevron reported its highest quarterly profit ever at $12.1 billion, while Exxon raked in $14.5 billion and Shell posted its second-highest quarter on record.
While Big Oil racks up record profits, its legal team is asking the Supreme Court to let it dodge paying for the climate-driven damage those polluting profits come from. Insurers are profiting right alongside them, collecting $1.03 trillion in premiums in 2024, keeping $383 billion after paying claims, about double their typical take, all while paying out less per premium dollar than they did decades ago.
“Homeowners are getting squeezed from every direction,” said Jayson O’Neill, spokesperson for Unlocking America’s Future. “Big Oil corporations are posting record profits while the very storms and fires their products fuel are wiping out families’ savings and livelihoods. And many of the same big insurance corporations, who are jacking up premiums, denying claims, and canceling policies, are underwriting and investing premium dollars into the same polluting fossil fuel industry driving this crisis.”
Meanwhile, the same insurers raising premiums and denying claims are propping up the industry driving the disasters. State Farm holds $30.9 billion in fossil fuel investments, and USAA holds $5.7 billion, even as both companies have hiked rates or dropped Texas and California homeowners citing climate risk.
“Republicans in Congress have had every opportunity to hold these industries accountable and protect their constituents, and instead they’ve stood by while we pay more for less as the American dream of homeownership becomes further out of reach and a nightmare for those impacted by polluter-caused climate-driven disasters,” O’Neill said.
Republicans in Congress have let this stand while gutting the very agency families rely on to recover. The Trump administration’s budget proposed zero funding for the HUD disaster recovery program that helped rebuild homes after 2023 and 2024 disasters, down from $12 billion the prior year.
Congressional Republicans’ moves to disband FEMA, undermine weather forecasting data, failure to address the National Flood Insurance program, the politicization, attacks, and funding cuts on federal disaster preparedness and recovery efforts, and continued climate denial to benefit big polluters have pushed risks onto working Americans and are driving insurance costs even higher, shifting the financial burden of climate risk squarely onto policyholders while oil executives and insurance shareholders profit.
Email jayson@focalpointstrategygroup.com to set up interviews with ratings, legal, advocacy, and insurance experts.
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