NEW YORK: A category of insurance risk that hardly existed a little over a decade ago has morphed into a meaningful source of losses for the industry.
Claims tied to strikes, riots and civil commotion (SRCC) are emerging as a growing headache for insurers as episodes of unrest increasingly lead to the destruction of property in Western democracies.
Howden Re estimates that insured losses related to SRCC soared from negligible levels in 2013 to more than US$8bil between 2020 and 2024.
SRCC losses are prone to huge swings between years, with single events often changing the landscape significantly.
After relatively few claims globally in 2025, Howden Re told Bloomberg it’s now expecting the United States to see a clear increase in SRCC losses this year.
“We live in a time of heightened risk,” said David Flandro, head of industry analysis and strategic advisory at Howden Re.
“And the flare-ups making news headlines in the United States are clearly indicative of a broader trend,” he said.
Civil unrest is on the rise globally, a development that has coincided with a measurable increase in levels of inequality and polarisation in some of the world’s richest countries.
In most Western nations, for example, the majority of citizens no longer expect to see any growth in generational wealth, according to the Pew Research Centre.
Rising political division is adding to SRCC risks in both Europe and the United States, according to Verisk Maplecroft.
However, the sharpest increase in protest sizes is taking place in the United States, Verisk said in December.
When it comes to ranking countries with the greatest SRCC risk, the United States is the No. 1 Western democracy and sits at No. 5 overall.
This puts it ahead of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, according to first quarter data provided by Verisk Maplecroft. France ranks seventh.
SRCC models take into account not just the risk of unrest, but also the cost of replacing property that’s damaged.
“It’s fair to say that the SRCC risk landscape has fundamentally changed,” said Torbjorn Soltvedt, associate director of political violence at Verisk.
For a long time, insurers have offered protection against SRCC at no extra cost.
However, elevated risk environments mean this is becoming less common and property insurers have begun excluding or restricting cover for SRCC from their policies, according to Cara Brown, deputy head of terrorism and political violence at Chubb.
SRCC coverage is generally bolted on to other insurance policies, though there’s evidence that the rise in such risks is prompting companies to start seeking specific cover.
At the same time, Howden Re said already back in 2023 that insurers were starting to charge “significant additional premiums” for SRCC coverage, with retail assets among the most affected.
Over two-thirds of multinational corporations already use political risk modeling tools, a trend Howden Re said is rising.
And in 2024, Lloyd’s of London – the 338-year-old insurance market – assigned SRCC risk its own code. In 2025, Verisk released its first SRCC catastrophe model, focused on the US market.
In the United States, several data-tracking services showed that the number of political protests is on the rise.
Meanwhile, perceptions of the United States are changing, said Stephen M. Davis, senior fellow at Harvard Law School’s programme on corporate governance and co-founder of the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Investment. — Bloomberg
