Property damage from civil disorder during George Floyd protests could total more than $2 billion

(Image credit: AGUSTIN PAULLIER/AFP via Getty Images)

published 16 September 2020

Although the nationwide protests following the killing of George Floyd were largely peaceful, the property destruction that occurred alongside the demonstrations between May 26 and June 8 was not insignificant, Axios reports.

Property Claims Services, a company that has tracked insurance claims related to civil disorder since 1950, estimates the insured losses stemming from this year's protests "far outstrip" the previous record-holding Rodney King demonstrations in 1992, even when adjusted for inflation. All told, the events in May and June will result in at least $1 billion of paid insurance claims and possibly more than $2 billion, Axios reports. PCS did not reveal the exact dollar figure to Axios because it wants to sell the data to clients.

The circumstances matter here, however. Unlike the other costly incidents of civil disorder, including the King demonstrations, the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles, or the 1977 New York City blackout, the 2020 protests extended beyond one city, making it the first time PCS designated a "multi-state catastrophe event," although it's not clear how evenly distributed the damage was among different cities. Read more at Axios.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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