Washington homeowners face a brutal reality: premiums climbed 51% over six years, and two residents now argue that oil companies helped create the conditions that pushed rates higher.
Their lawsuit, filed Nov. 25 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, targets Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and the American Petroleum Institute.
The plaintiffs, Richard Kennedy of Normandy Park and Margaret Hazard of Carson, filed through Hagens Berman, a firm that’s taken on large climate and consumer cases before.
The complaint says these companies knew their fossil-fuel business model would accelerate climate change. Maybe even decades ago.
According to the filing, the defendants understood extreme weather and sea-level rise would intensify, invested heavily to protect their own assets, then kept expanding the very activities driving the harm.
The suit frames this as classic negligence mixed with deceptive conduct.
Plaintiffs lean on data that’s hard to ignore. A Treasury report cited in the filing shows that between 2018 and 2022 the annual number of major climate-related disaster declarations almost doubled compared with the 1960–2010 average.
Loss numbers follow that pattern. US natural catastrophes cost an estimated $114bn in 2023, with about $80bn insured.
The first three quarters of 2024 brought $145bn in economic losses and nearly $80bn insured. Insurers talk about climate volatility; homeowners see it show up as bigger bills.
The API’s legal team calls the case baseless. Ryan Meyers, the group’s general counsel, says the suit is part of a coordinated effort targeting an industry that “powers everyday life” and is cutting emissions. He argues climate policy belongs in Congress, not scattered courtrooms.
Federal judges haven’t weighed in on the merits of climate torts yet. Most rulings so far revolve around jurisdiction. Historically, courts have dismissed these claims as political questions outside their reach.
Kennedy’s insurance history appears in the complaint. He paid $1,012.10 for homeowners coverage in 2017; by 2022, the bill hit $2,149.18 – a jump of roughly 113%.
He says he didn’t know about the alleged misconduct or the link between rising climate risk and his increasing premiums. Hazard faced the same squeeze. Her costs more than doubled, pushing her into a cheaper policy with weaker protection, which isn’t ideal when you live in dry, fire-prone terrain.
The lawsuit echoes research that oil companies had internal scientific warnings dating back to the 1960s about carbon dioxide emissions and the long-term consequences of burning petroleum products.
Plaintiffs say those warnings described “catastrophic” outcomes. According to Beinsure, cases like this test whether courts will accept climate-linked economic harm as a basis for liability.
Whether these claims survive the early procedural fights remains the real question, since the legal system hasn’t yet decided how far responsibility stretches in a warming world.
