Riot damage of $1 billion+ said to be “most expensive in insurance history”

An exclusive report went into detail on how the riots sparked by the death of George Floyd are coming in at $1 billion+ and are listed as the “most expensive in insurance history” according to Axios.

People began rioting after George Floyd passed away while being detained by Minneapolis. The rioting, looting, and protesting has carried on ever since, especially if there is a new police-involved incident where a suspect loses their life and they are a person of color. Despite a suspect possibly being armed, or in-fact – being armed (as one man held a weapon in his hand and was raising his hand with it, but will not be named), the activists have revolted nonetheless.

The riots, looting, or protests we see today stem all the way back to George Floyd and the start of civil unrest and disobedience directed at police officers. While they were once hailed as heroes after 9/11, they’re not being frowned upon, even though a majority of the police officers in America are not bad cops.

The Axios report dives into just how much all this property damage costs and it’s an extraordinary amount of money. Hurricanes and wildfires are likely to still be some of the most expensive claims, but civil disobedience is creeping it’s way up this year.

The vandalism and looting following the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police will cost the insurance industry more than any other violent demonstrations in recent history, Axios has learned.

So far, there have been protests in about 140 cities in the United States. Despite peaceful protests taking place, there have been people committing crimes such as vandalism (in many forms), arson, and looting that can sometimes involve not only stealing merchandise, but destroying a store as well.

The riot behavior after George Floyd has officially broken the record set by the Rodney King incident that took place in Los Angeles in 1992, after the cops who were part of the incident were acquitted.

Axios reports that the company Property Claim Services (PCS) is tracking the insurance claims tied to incidents like this and they’ve been doing it since at least 1950. They say any loss over $25 million is called a “catastrophe” and that this years civil unrest (stated May 26 to June 8) will cost the insurance company a lot more money than anything before this.

Here’s the information from the Axios report:

• That number could be as much as $2 billion and possibly more, according to the Insurance Information Institute (or Triple-I), which compiles information from PCS as well as other firms that report such statistics.

• The protests related to George Floyd’s death are also different because they are so widespread. “It’s not just happening in one city or state — it’s all over the country,” Loretta L. Worters of the Triple-I tells Axios.

• “And this is still happening, so the losses could be significantly more.”

PCS, a unit of Verisk Analytics, won’t reveal an exact dollar figure from this year’s violence because it wants to sell that data to clients. But it says the insured losses far outstrip the prior record of $775 million from the 1992 Rodney King demonstrations.

• All previous catastrophes — as classified by the insurance industry — happened in a particular city. This was the first that happened not just in multiple cities, but in 20 states.

• “Not only is this the first, this is the first — kind of with a cymbal crash,” Tom Johansmeyer, head of PCS, tells Axios.

The report also suggests that PCS is preparing themselves for any civil unrest that may occur after the 2020 election results are announced.

Photo: Brett Weinstein (Wikipedia user Nrbelex) / CC BY-SA