SUITED and booted Extinction Rebellion activists occupied insurance offices in the City of London todaay to protest against insurers’ role in supporting climate-wrecking fossil fuel projects.

Activists in business attire outsmarted police and security to access the lobbies of five firms.

They vowed to occupy the offices until company bosses agreed to talk to them about their decision to keep insuring oil and gas companies.

Simultaneously, hundreds marched through the City with banners reading “insure our future, not fossil fuels.”

An unconfirmed number of arrests were made, among them of eight protesters from the theatrical Dirty Scrubbers group.

According to the XR livestream, the activists liaised with the police about an action in which they put fake money into a prop washing machine, and use green dye to “greenwash” it, but they were arrested over conspiracy to cause criminal damage.

Liz Pendleton, one of the occupying protesters, said: “We are here to engage constructively with insurance bosses about their decision to insure the fossil fuel crooks wrecking the climate.

“The insurance industry has a unique opportunity to immediately halt all the ‘carbon bomb’ projects like the East Africa crude oil pipeline and the West Cumbria coalmine that will cause climate breakdown and a future of killer storms and heatwaves, floods, famine and war.

“It’s very simple: No insurance equals no drilling. No insurance equals no digging. So these companies have a superpower that could give us all a fighting chance of a liveable future.”

Activists occupied the offices of Zurich, the only major European insurance firm still insuring new fossil fuel projects, and Tokio Marine, which pocketed an estimated £370 million in premiums from fossil fuel investments in 2022.

Talbot, Probitas and Travelers were also targeted.