Lawsuit: Big Oil’s decades of climate deception fueled WA’s soaring home insurance costs

A new federal lawsuit alleges that some of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies knowingly misled the public for decades about the dangers of climate change, ultimately driving up homeowners’ insurance premiums across Washington and the rest of the country, according to a complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

The proposed class action, brought by Washington residents Richard Kennedy of Normandy Park and Margaret Hazard of Carson, claims oil companies including ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips engaged in a long-running campaign to obscure what they knew internally about the consequences of burning fossil fuels.

Plaintiffs argue those actions delayed the transition to clean energy and directly contributed to extreme wea