“If we care about animals and care about the planet, we want to leave that land untouched,” said Alina DeVoogd, field organizer with the Green Corp stationed in Hartford. “Furthermore, we need to move away from fossil fuels and drilling for more oil and decimating this land.”

DeVoogd, and other advocates with the Gwich’in Steering Committee, have been pushing for companies like The Hartford and Travelers to draft formal policies against insuring those that drill in the refuge.

The Gwich’in Steering Committee, which is based in Alaska, and the Connecticut Citizens Action Group have been working to engage banks, energy and insurance companies in hopes of starting a chain reaction.

“The insurance industry seeing these large companies like Travelers, or The Hartford, which considers themselves one of the most ethical companies in the insurance industry, taking that step to be an ethical insurance company and rule out these projects, I think we would consider them to be leaders in the industry, and we would hope that the rest of the industry would follow suit,” said Helen Humphreys, communications coordinator with CCAG.

The CCAG and the steering committee will hold an event at the Charter Oak Community Center in Hartford on Wednesday to raise awareness about its effort.

“There’s a lot of people in the Hartford area that work at insurance companies, or have family members or friends that work at these insurance companies,” Humphreys said. “And we’d really like to encourage folks to make their company make the world a better place.”

The steering committee compiled a scorecard of criteria for various insurance companies in the US and around the world, ranking them as gold, silver, bronze, no medal and disqualified. The only US-based insurance company to medal was AIG, which got silver.

Connecticut insurance companies Travelers, The Hartford and Liberty Mutual fell in the disqualified category. Disqualified companies have “no policy or process that could reasonably be applied to the Arctic Refuge, and has not even bothered to reply to the Gwich’in Steering Committee and allies,” the group said.

A spokesperson for The Hartford, which has since responded to the steering committee, did not say if the firm insures any drilling companies in the Arctic Refuge.

“As a matter of practice, we do not publicly discuss proprietary details of our underwriting footprint or specific accounts,” said Matthew Sturdevant, a spokesperson for The Hartford.

While The Hartford declined to comment specifically on the Arctic Refuge, Sturdevant did highlight the company’s commitment to environmentally friendly practices.

“Our long-standing commitment to sustainability is demonstrated by our actions, which include our goal to achieve net zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions for our full range of businesses and operations by 2050, our commitment to invest $2.5 billion over five years to advance the energy transition , as well as reducing our involvement with fossil fuels,” Sturdevant said. “We remain determined to use our resources responsibly to address the challenge of climate change and are committed to keeping our stakeholders informed of our progress.”

Travelers and Liberty Mutual did not respond to requests for comment.

A June 2020 report from Insure Our Future lists Travelers and The Hartford among the 15 largest oil and gas insurers in the world. An annual scorecard from Insure Our Future lists Travelers as the second-worst for investing and insuring fossil fuels.

recent market share data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners shows Travelers and The Hartford are active players in Alaska’s insurance market. Both rank in the top-10 in the state for market share in surety bonds, an important insurance product for oil and gas projects.

The Gwich’in Steering Committee reported that the six largest banks in America and the five largest in Canada, as well as 18 other international banks, have all issued policies against financing drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Fourteen international insurance companies and US-based AIG have stated they will not insure development projects in the refuge.

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