Riots in the U.S. Insurance History: The Costliest Civil Disorders

A ranked list of riots in the U.S. insurance history is only useful if you know what the dollars measure. Insurers do not publish the full cost of a civil disorder. They publish the claims they expect to pay on covered property.

The largest insured civil disorder on the U.S. books is the multi-state unrest in late spring 2020. The 1992 Los Angeles riots are next. Older events still on the industry list look small until you put them in one dollar year, and several famous disorders never cleared the line used for a catastrophe.

This page shows how those losses are counted, which events sit at the top, how the pre-2020 list looks in 2016 dollars, and what a home, car, or business policy pays.

What Does PCS Count as a Catastrophe?

Property Claim Services, a unit of Verisk, has tracked insurance claims tied to civil disorder since 1950. A “most expensive” list built from that work is an insured-loss list. It is not a tally of broken windows, overtime, hospital bills, and closed shops added together.

PCS calls an event a catastrophe when insured losses pass $25 million. That is the current line. The older industry table of costly disorders used a lower bar in earlier years: at least $1 million up to 1992, $5 million from 1992 to 1996, and $25 million after that. An event can be measured and still miss the catastrophe label.

Baltimore in April 2015 is the clear case. After Freddie Gray died in police custody, PCS compiled the insured losses from the riots, and they did not reach the catastrophe line when they occurred. The archive still shows that event at $23.9 million.

The 2020 unrest crossed the line in many places at once, so PCS designated one multi-state catastrophe. Earlier catastrophes in this series were tied to a single city. Tom Johansmeyer, then head of PCS, described that multi-state call as a first for a civil disorder.

The 2020 Civil Unrest Insurance Losses

Insured losses from the civil unrest of May 26 to June 8, 2020 are the largest PCS has assigned to a U.S. civil disorder. Triple-I’s civil disorder facts page puts the estimate at over $2 billion, and that figure is still subject to further evaluation as claims are reviewed.

PCS does not publish one exact public dollar for the event, because the detailed claim file is sold to insurer clients. Open summaries therefore stay at “over $2 billion” rather than a single revised total. Treat any chart that prints a tighter number as a different estimate, not as a correction of the facts page.

The unrest followed the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis and spread to 140 U.S. cities, among them Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. It was the first time since 1992 that PCS had compiled large insured losses for a civil disorder and declared a catastrophe.

The National Guard was deployed in at least 21 states and Washington, D.C. Losses that PCS treated as part of the catastrophe reached across more than 20 states. Loretta L. Worters, a Triple-I vice president, said the pattern differed from earlier disorders because it was not confined to one city or one state.

The 1992 Los Angeles Insurance Losses

From April 29 to May 4, 1992, Los Angeles held what was then the insured-loss record for a U.S. civil disorder. A jury had acquitted Los Angeles police officers charged with using excessive force in the arrest and beating of Rodney King.

PCS put the insured losses at $775 million. That survey of insurers covered property and inventory, including some smaller losses in other California cities, and it was the figure that stood as the record until 2020.

In 2020 dollars, Triple-I states that same PCS loss as about $1.4 billion. Set that restatement beside the 2020 total, since both use 2020 dollars. Do not set it beside the 2016-dollar archive further down. That archive is a different year’s money, and the two adjustments are not interchangeable.

The insured figure also stops at claims. It does not include damage to public buildings, emergency cleanup, health care, or lost tax revenue. Those costs were part of the Los Angeles bill, and they never moved the PCS rank.

Civil Disorders Ranked in 2016 Dollars

Triple-I published a table of the ten most costly U.S. civil disorders for events through April 30, 2015, adjusted with the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index. The amounts below are that table, ordered here by the 2016-dollar column. The 2020 unrest is absent because the archive stops before it.

Read the two money columns together and the order is not the order of the original bills. Miami’s loss at the time was larger than Detroit’s, yet Detroit sits higher once both amounts are in 2016 dollars. A modest 1960s bill can outrank a later event that looks similar in the dollars of its own year.

Baltimore’s row is on this ten and still sits under the catastrophe line. Chicago’s row is July 12, 1966, not the April 1968 disorder that other charts describe. The New York row for July 13 to 14, 1977 is mostly fire, looting, vandalism, and malicious mischief tied to the blackout, which is how Triple-I footnotes that line.

Charts that add separate April 1968 disorders in Washington, Baltimore, and Chicago are not this archive. Watts in August 1965, Detroit in late July 1967, Miami in May 1980, and the 1977 New York blackout disorder are the names that keep showing up on both kinds of list. If a ranking mixes 1968 city totals into the Triple-I ten, you are reading two lists at once.

The 2016 column is an inflation adjustment, not a second claim survey. Use it to compare events inside this table. Use 2020 dollars only when the source has already restated the loss in 2020 dollars, as Triple-I did for 1992.

Riot Coverage on Home, Auto, and Business Policies

The ranks above are the industry’s claim load. Your result depends on the form you bought, the deductible, and whether the damage is at your address. The guide to civil disorder coverage from Triple-I is the plain version of how standard policies treat this peril.

Homeowners and Renters Policies

A standard homeowners policy covers damage caused by fire, an explosion, a riot or civil commotion, vandalism, or malicious mischief. Coverage reaches the structure and personal belongings in the home.

If you cannot live there because of an insured disaster, additional living expenses can pay hotel bills and restaurant meals above what you would have spent at home. Renters policies are grouped with home policies for those extra living costs. The building itself stays on the owner’s policy.

WHAT TO MATCH ON THE FORM

• The peril name: Look for riot, civil commotion, vandalism, or malicious mischief on the form you hold.
• The deductible: A covered claim still begins only after the deductible on that section of the policy.
• The address: Extra living costs need damage at the insured place, not a disturbance that stays across town.

Match those three lines before you file. Photos of the structure, a list of damaged belongings, and any police or fire report your insurer asks for are what turn a covered peril into a claim file. A curfew with no damage at your home does not start extra living costs.

Comprehensive Coverage on a Car

• Comprehensive, not liability: Riot, vandalism, fire, and falling objects are paid under comprehensive coverage, and that part of an auto policy is optional.
• Your own car: Liability pays other people when you are at fault. It does not repair your car after a fire or a broken window.
• Who buys it: About three-quarters of U.S. drivers choose comprehensive, so the rest have no claim for this damage to their own car.

Drivers who skipped comprehensive should not expect the insurer to treat a riot as a reason to add the coverage after the loss. The form in force on the date of the damage is the form that answers. Contents in the car follow the same comprehensive grant, which is worth knowing if tools or a laptop were inside.

Business Property and Lost Income

Damage to the physical part of a business and its contents from fire, riots, civil commotion, or vandalism is generally covered on a standard business owners policy. Windows, doors, fixtures, furniture, stock, and equipment fall under property coverage when the peril applies. Some businesses buy plate glass on its own, so a shattered storefront is the first line to check rather than the last.

Some commercial property forms exclude strikes, riots, and civil commotion, including forms updated after earlier unrest. “All risk” on a cover page is not a promise that those words survived in the exclusions. Read that section before you assume a shop policy matches a homeowners policy from the same night.

1. Confirm direct physical damage at your premises from a covered peril. Business income coverage is triggered by that damage, not by a quiet sales week on its own.
2. If police or the fire department bars access to the property, ask about the civil authority provision, which can cover lost income and extra expense in that case.
3. If the only harm is a curfew, or customers who stayed home, with no damage and no access ban, expect the income portion to be declined.

A shop with a smashed window and missing stock has a property claim you can document with photos, inventory, and the report your insurer requests. Days closed for repairs are the income question. Days of slow trade while the shop was intact are a different problem, and standard business income does not treat them as the same loss.

Damage the Insured Total Does Not Include

Every dollar on this page is a claim insurers pay, or expect to pay, on covered property. Uninsured storefronts, households with no policy, losses under a deductible, and forms that exclude the peril never enter the total. A block can look devastated in person and still add little to the PCS number if few of those buildings were insured for the peril.

The public bill sits outside as well. Public buildings, cleanup, emergency services, health care, and lost tax revenue were excluded from the 1992 insured estimate, and the same boundary applies to later PCS totals. A city can run a large overtime and repair cost and never change the insured rank.

That is why two honest descriptions of one disorder can sound far apart. One person is describing the street. The other is describing paid claims. Neither number corrects the other. They answer different questions, and only the claims number belongs in an insurance ranking.

Civil Disorders and Natural Catastrophe Size

A record civil disorder is still a modest entry on the wider catastrophe list. RMS put the insured loss range for Hurricane Isaias at $3 billion to $5 billion, one 2020 storm in the same broad range as the largest civil disorder rather than a separate universe of loss.

Over the 20 years from 1997 to 2016, Triple-I’s catastrophe review grouped civil disorders with water damage and utility disruption and put that combined group at about 0.2 percent of insured catastrophe losses. The share is not civil disorders alone, and it is not a forecast. It shows why a new first on the riot list barely moves what insurers pay in a storm year.

Use that scale when you read a headline that treats a riot total as the year’s disaster. The insured rank among civil disorders can be a record and still be a small slice of catastrophe losses. The claim on your block is unaffected by that national share. It is settled by the peril, the limit, and the deductible on your form.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Renters Insurance Pay Hotel Bills After Riot Damage?

Yes, when the damage is a covered disaster and you cannot live at home. Triple-I groups renters policies with home policies for additional living expenses, which can include hotel bills and restaurant meals above your usual costs while repairs are underway. The landlord’s policy is the one that covers the building, so your claim is for your living costs and for belongings your own form insures.

Is Riot Damage the Same Peril as Terrorism?

No. Riot, civil commotion, and vandalism are perils on standard property forms. Terrorism is tracked on its own, and many ordinary policies limit it or leave it to a separate terrorism policy. Insured property losses from the September 11, 2001 attacks were about $29 billion in 2021 dollars, on Swiss Re data cited by Triple-I, which is a different ledger from civil disorders.

Does a Cracked Windshield From a Riot Need Comprehensive?

Yes, if you want the insurer to pay for the glass. Comprehensive is the optional auto coverage that reimburses a cracked or shattered windshield, and some companies offer glass coverage with no deductible. A liability-only policy does not pay for damage to your own car, including glass broken in a civil disorder.

Can You Rank the 2016 Archive Against the 2020 Total?

Not on one scale. The archive is adjusted to 2016 dollars and stops with events through April 30, 2015. The 2020 unrest is stated in that year’s dollars on the facts page, and it was never entered in the 2016 table. Convert both amounts to the same dollar year before you call one event first and another fifth.

Do City Cleanup Costs Sit Inside the Insured Total?

No. Insured totals are claims on covered property. They leave out public buildings, emergency cleanup, health care, and lost tax revenue, which is the boundary industry officials drew around the 1992 Los Angeles estimate and the boundary PCS totals still use. A large city bill can be absent from the ranking without any dispute about what the insurers paid.

If you are comparing two published lists, put both in one dollar year before you trust the order. If you are standing in front of a damaged home, car, or shop, the lines that decide the claim are the peril name, the deductible, and whether the damage is at your address.

Disclaimer: This article is an educational guide to published insured-loss figures and to how standard policies are generally described. It is informational only and is not insurance, legal, or financial advice about what your policy will pay. Ask a licensed agent or broker, and read your own forms, before you file a claim or buy coverage, because exclusions, limits, and deductibles differ. Figures and threshold rules here reflect the sources at the time of review and can change as claim estimates are revised.