Few businesses will likely be fully compensated as Hong Kong insurance usually do not cover vandalism.
Displaying a banner in support of the police – who protesters have complained of being heavy-handed – was enough to see a small video game shop in western New Territories vandalised four times this month.“There’s a chance that I won’t get compensation because the damage is due to social unrest … I don’t think riot damage is covered.”
Hong Kong is a lucrative market for global insurers including American International Group Inc, AXA SA and Zurich Insurance Group AG, with the value of premiums as a percentage of gross domestic product at 18.16%, second only to Taiwan in the Asia-Pacific region. “Overall financial damage from these events will be quite significant and neither insurers nor most of the businesses would have prepared for something like this,” said an insurance sector lawyer with a global law firm.
Anti-government demonstrations have taken place on almost every weekend since June 9. Yesterday, riot police and protesters exchanged tear gas and petrol bombs as an illegal march descended into chaos, with hundreds of shops trashed and Chinese banks and metro stations targeted.