Rich World’s Growing Civil Unrest Comes With an Insurance Sting

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 SRCC — strikes, riots and civil commotion — 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 $8 billion between 2020 and 2024.

SRCC losses are prone to huge swings between years, with single events often changing the landscape significantly. After ...