Dear UC President Michael Drake (M.D.),
Appointed UC Regents,
Associate Vice President & Chief Risk Officer Cheryl Lloyd,

Thank you for securing insurance policies for the University of California to protect our wellbeing, our livelihoods, and our lives. This year, the global threat of the COVID-19 pandemic has stretched the ability of institutions to mitigate risk to breaking point. We appreciate the challenging circumstances and the tension between managing expenditures in an economic crisis and providing crucial coverage and mitigating risk. We thank you for your hard work to offer us continuity, opportunity, and security.

Nevertheless, as an institution dedicated to the pursuit and understanding of truth, we recognize that a financial insurance policy can offer no real protection against the potential of catastrophic climate change to drive human civilization and potentially humanity itself to extinction.

As a species we are currently addicted to fossil fuels.

Recovery from addiction begins with honesty.

Only by openly examining actions and behaviors, can the destructive cycles that characterize addiction be recognized and amended. As a University we have begun this challenging but necessary process, acknowledging that our investment in companies that fund the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels is self-defeating. The University has therefore taken the first steps to divest. We must take the next steps if we are to stand a real chance of successfully defusing the threat of climate-driven extinction.

What are those next steps? We must now examine our other institutional financial practices.

Insurance companies that we rely on in the face of disaster are simultaneously supporting projects to expand the fossil fuel industry. These projects will have disastrous impact upon our climate, increase the frequency and severity of natural disasters. These projects directly conflict with the UC’s stated mission of providing long-term societal benefits.

Globally, insurance companies are beginning to divest from fossil fuel projects due to the rapidly diminishing value of such assets and to the burgeoning wave of public pressure. For example, Zurich who currently provide liability coverage for UC, recently decided not to renew support for the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project, which would transport more than 890,000 barrels per year of dirty tar sands crude oil.

Currently, Liberty Mutual, who also insure UC, remain a key backer of tar sands oil projects, including the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project and the Keystone XL Pipeline, which tramples Indigenous land rights to and will accelerate the collapse of a livable climate.

As a species, we cannot afford to wait until a few more mega-pipelines are constructed before we take steps to keep fossil fuels in the ground. As an institution, we cannot afford to stay silent, while indigenous people and their land rights are ignored to squeeze profits against an overwhelming body of evidence that fossil fuel extraction is that last thing the planet and human civilization needs.

We ask you, the leaders and stewards of this institution to Insure Our Future by:
• Refusing to initiate or renew insurance from companies that continue to support the Trans Mountain Pipeline or Keystone XL Pipeline projects.
• Publicly announcing our thanks to Zurich for dropping the Trans Mountain Pipeline project, and our request that all UC insurers refuse to initiate or renew coverage of fossil fuel projects by the end of 2020.
• Publicly committing by the end of 2020 to requiring insurance providers for new or renewing contracts with UC to meet or exceed the policy of AXIS capital.

We recognize that these are difficult times. But we also write to you today with the conviction that action now is required of all of us, as the threat that a ruined climate presents greatly exceeds the dangers of our present moment. And we thank you for your attention to our urgent concerns.