Chubb Insurance and its CEO, Evan Greenberg, have gotten noticed by watchdog group Consumers' Research. The nonprofit has launched a campaign called “China Chubb” with the stated goal of shaming Chubb and Greenberg for putting profits and power ahead of the United States and our own interests.
Greenberg, whose business background is the insurance industry, has led Chubb as CEO since 2016. He is also heavily involved in the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a who’s who of powerful corporate bosses, where Greenberg was elected chair of its board of directors in 2023.
Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, tells AFN that Chubb and Greenberg are "undermining our way of life here in the United States” because of their business partnership with the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jingping, China’s president.
How close is that partnership? A related Fox News story about the “China Chubb” campaign bolstered Hild’s claims with a detailed description of Greenberg and his China connections. The story quotes U.S. officials who defended Greenberg and described his efforts at diplomacy, but it also says the CEO has “personal and professional entanglements” with Xi and the Chinese Communist Party that include numerous corporate ventures.
"We are gathered today to gain insight from President Xi into his vision for the future of his country and of the relationship between the United States and China,” Greenberg told a San Francisco gathering in 2023, the Fox story said.
That gathering was a dinner for Xi, sponsored by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, where U.S. business leaders paid $40,000 a ticket to be in the same room as the Chinese president.
The same Fox story pointed out Greenberg’s father, Hank Greenberg, also has major business deals in China including acquiring a China-based insurer.
Chubb, which can date its beginnings to investors in the 1700s, now operates a global company headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. It reported $9.2 billion in income in 2024, a new record.
"They're sort of like the BlackRock of insurers," Hild says of Chubb.
Chubb is the latest target of Consumers Research and its “Consumers First Initiative,” which launched in 2021. The campaign has targeted Coca-Cola, Ticketmaster, Levi’s, American Airlines, and other major corporations.
Reached for comment for this story, a spokesman for Chubb told AFN that words and actions made by the CEO have been taken out of context.
In a lengthy response a Greenberg spokesperson told AFN: "China is continuing to grow more authoritarian at home and aggressive abroad. The Chinese leadership is unrelenting at home in their approach to imposing centralized control. China's foreign policy has become more assertive, intolerant of criticism and forceful in responding to challenges to its interests. China's leaders hold a different view of their behavior, believing they are responding to U.S.-led Western pressure to stifle China's rise. Nevertheless, we view China as increasingly presenting a threat to our interests and values, as well as those of our allies and partners."
