Californians Deserve Justice for Big Oil’s Lies Causing the Insurance Affordability Crisis

Insurance is in Crisis

✅ More frequent and destructive climate disasters are causing home insurance rates to skyrocket, with Californians paying $1,000 to $10,000 more each year. Calculate how much insurance rates have risen in your community here.

✅ As private insurers leave California or stop issuing new policies, pressure on the state’s insurer of last resort has boomed. As of December 2024, the FAIR Plan’s total exposure is $529 billion, reflecting a 217% increase since the end of FY 2021.

✅ Nearly 9 in 10 voters, across party lines, are worried about rising insurance rates. And they’re frustrated. While costs keep climbing, our elected leaders are siding with Big Oil.

Big Oil Knew The Dangers And Chose to Put us at Risk

✅ Documents uncovered in Fall 2024 reveal California’s biggest oil companies learned the climate risks of burning fossil fuels in 1954.

✅ A CalTech study commissioned by Western States Petroleum Association, then called the Western Oil and Gas Association (WSPA), concluded: “The possible consequences of a changing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere with reference to climate may ultimately prove of considerable significance to civilization.”

✅ WSPA pioneered climate denial to bury the truth with lies and protect trillions of dollars in profits at our expense.

✅ Big Oil’s greed has exposed our homes, jobs, and lives to more frequent and destructive wildfires, extreme heat, drought, and floods caused by climate change.

✅ Nearly 6 in 10 voters support requiring big oil to pay for increasing insurance costs and disaster recovery linked to extreme weather.

Climate Disasters Will be an Expensive Part of Our Future

✅ A study by ClaimGuide.org ranked California the state most at risk with $16 billion in costs each year. Of the nation’s five most at risk counties, four are in California – Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Alameda.

Keeping Our Costs Down as Los Angeles Rebuilds

✅ January wildfires leveled more than 16,000 homes and businesses in the most costly disaster in our nation’s history with initial estimates peg damages at over $250 billion.

✅ New research found the hot, dry, and windy conditions fueling these wildfires were 35 percent more likely because of climate change caused primarily burning fossil fuels.

✅ Working Californians and insurers are splitting a $1 billion bill to help the state’s insurer of last resort – the FAIR Plan – pay claims to rebuild Los Angeles after January wildfires

✅ The state’s largest insurer received provisional approval to hike rates 22% for homeowners, 15% for condo owners, and 38% for renters, and recovery is just getting started. If approved, the average State Farm policyholder in California will pay $845 more for homeowners insurance in 2025 than they did in 2023.

Demand our elected leaders take action to address the insurance crisis.

What We Do

California Environmental Voters is focused on building the political power to solve the climate crisis, advancing justice, and creating a roadmap for global action. We are California’s voice, statewide and nationally, for bold climate action. We elect and cultivate environmental champions, turn election victories into policy wins, hold our lawmakers accountable, and build political power to transform our political system and achieve climate justice. Learn more about what we do.