Campus Protests, Political Tension: A Deep Dive on SRCC Coverage

This Spring has seen protests pop up on college campuses all over America.

As a result of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, student organizations have been demanding action from their universities to divest from Israel. Meanwhile counter protests have also occurred. While some protests have stayed peaceful, others have broken out in violence. Lucy Straker, Focus Group Leader of Political Violence & Deadly Weapons Protection at Beazley, and Matthew Westhoff, Head of North American Commercial Property at Beazley discuss strike, riot and civil commotion policies (SRCC). Additionality they share the risks associated with the upcoming 2024 election and the current heightened political climate.

Read the Transcript

Lucy Straker
We’ve almost like sat back and thought, actually, this risk doesn’t happen to us. It happens overseas. And that’s no longer the case. It’s happening right on our doorsteps. 

Matthew Westhoff
I think, speaking globally, more than half the world’s population will be voting this year. Right. So there’s going to be a lot of turnover in leadership, which obviously can lead to further geopolitical risk. 

Lucy Straker
You know, it’s human nature, and it has the ability to light that match and then just expand. 

Zach
Welcome to the Leader’s Edge Podcast. I’m Zach Ewell, content producer here at Leader’s Edge. This spring has seen protests pop up on college campuses all around America as a result of the ongoing Israel Hamas war. Student organizations have been demanding action from their universities in the form of divestment in boycott. Meanwhile, counter protests have also occurred. Now, many states and cities have been impacted by these protests, including my own home of Washington, DC. As someone whose neighborhood of foggy bottom has been directly impacted by the demonstrations on George Washington University’s campus, I set out to learn more about the risks and policies associated with these protests. To do so, I interviewed Lucy Straker, focus group leader of political violence and deadly weapons protection at Beasley, and Matthew Westhoff, head of north american commercial property at Beasley. 
Our interview comes off the publishing of Beasley’s latest risk and resilience report. We discussed strike, riot, and civil commotion policies, also known as SRCC, and the risks associated with the upcoming 2024 election. This past month have seen college campuses around the United States and around the world fill up with protests regarding the Israel Hamas war. News coverage has shown tent cities pop up on campus quads. Some protests have stayed peaceful, while others have erupted in violence with outsiders, instigating fights and riots. What preventative measures can businesses, colleges, and organizations take to protect against these risks? 

Lucy Straker
When dealing with these protests and these risks, one of the main difficulties that institutions are going to face is striking a balance between the right to freedom of speech and the requirement for safety and security on a college campus. What is allowed is obviously going to vary depending on whether that institution is public or private, and I would encourage them to do risk assessment based or taking account of those factors. But just in terms of basic preventative measures that could apply to every single institution, you’re going to have to do research, social media monitoring, anonymous reporting. So social media monitoring about who’s saying what and when? Who are those key speakers? Are those key speakers your students, or are they external people? 

Do they have a right to be there if they’re external people that anonymous reporting, is that going to enable you to predict where something’s going to happen and where problems might erupt? If people are corresponding on social media and planning, I think every institution is going to have certain policies, and we would always remind everyone on campus, you know, that obviously what those policies are and how they come into play. So every institution will have camp with, will have policies relating to gathering, protesting, safety, weapons. You know, what are the rights that students have with regards to weapons, especially now when you’ve got free carry permits across 29 states? We would always say to institutions, assume that there will be weapons. Make that assumption, because then you’re always planning for a worst case scenario. 

Consider adopting a protest policy that outlines how all these issues related to protests will be managed and responded to. Again, you also need to consider that actually that has to strike a balance if you are doing a protest policy between what I said earlier, the safety versus the academic freedom from a facility standpoint. Typically when you’re doing these riots or protests, there’s going to be an area where people congregate. So what is that area? Is it one that’s slap bang in the middle of campus? What are the risks associated with people congregating in that area? What is the quality of cell service in that area? How available is it for you to communicate within that area as well? You needed to call outside help. 

If you find that actually communication is limited, that is, cell service is limited, then obtain equipment to enable you to access that self service. The other thing I would say is coming back to that freedom of speech versus the safety and security of your people. Know the laws, understand what that means, because if it goes too far, then it enables you to step in. But on the other hand, if you go too far, then you will then face repercussion as a result afterwards. So know what you legally can and cannot do as it relates to the security, use of force, etcetera. And the final thing I’d say is, you know, understand how all of this, what’s going on, is going to impact your brand and your reputation. So make sure you know what you’re doing to protect your brand as well as your people. 

It’s easy to be prepared if you know something’s going to happen. So I don’t know whether you saw the Philadelphia police started greasing light poles in anticipation of game day football issues. Oh, yeah. So you know, if you know that something’s going to happen, or if you think things might escalate into violence, putting the steps in place to be prepared, can help eliminate any reduce, or can help eliminate and reduce any potential risks on the back end. So that comes back to, you know, practice everything, test with worst case scenarios. Prepare, prepare. 

Matthew Westhoff
You know, I think it’s easier for more sophisticated buyers and, you know, people, if you’re a college campus, obviously you’re very aware of what’s happening right now. But if you’re a surrounding business or if you’re a small business owner, or maybe you don’t have the sophistication that some others do, there are services, apps, things where you could get alerts, things that could kind of keep you updated on not just strikes, rise, civil commotion, but also things like weather events. And so there are these services and apps out there that people could get to get alerts to make sure that they’re aware of what’s going on in the surrounding area. 

Lucy Straker
Make a great point, Matt, in terms of some of these institutions may not have the finances or the resources available to them, but actually what we’ve discovered or not discovered, but, like, what you can see in terms of, like, across various businesses in America is that industries talk. So, you know, if you’re in the higher ed industry, you can guarantee that a lot of these college campuses are talking to each other. So they’re leaning on others expertise, which, you know, is invaluable, especially if you’re a Columbia and, you know, you’re wanting to learn something from someone else. So you want to share the knowledge and how you’ve responded. 

Zach
Sure. And you kind of touched upon it, you know, throughout this podcast so far. But regarding the answer you just gave, I’d like to again press and ask, what are these policies that you’re seeing popular for universities essentially, to protect against these risks? 

Matthew Westhoff
Most all risk property policies provide some sort of COVID unless it’s specifically excluded. Right. So you do have your property policy, as long as you understand the terms and conditions and how coverage will be triggered. But that’s gonna cover you for direct physical damage to your buildings and a subsequent bi. Essentially. Right. There’ll be some coverage extensions thrown in as well. But there are things like Lucy mentioned, DWP, event cancellation policies. It’s really dependent upon your own business and what your own individual exposures are. But those are just two or three policies that are out there that you could use to protect yourself against these sort of risks. 

Lucy Straker
Yeah, I think, you know, hindsight’s a really powerful thing because institutions across the US probably looking at what insurance they have and whether it’s sufficient, and, you know, you’ve obviously, as Matt mentioned, you’ve got your property, you’ve got other mandatory forms of COVID such as your workers comp or your gl that would be triggered, obviously, if you had employees or staff or third parties or students injured, depending on how the situation unfolds. But I think as Matt mentioned, you know, he’s mentioned DWP, he’s mentioned event cancellation, and now more than ever, we’re seeing the value of specialist insurance cover. I think it’s key for clients to ask themselves, you know, what is unique about my business and do I have every eventuality covered? 

So when you’re thinking of a college and at this particular moment in time, we’re coming up to the end of the year, you’ve got graduation ceremonies happening. So you need to ask yourself, do I have extra expense coverage? Do I have denial of access? Do I have that event cancellation? Do I have deadly weapons protection? If things escalate into violence, do I have cover for reputational risk? And then if you’re in the surrounding businesses, you know, if you are a hotel that is reliant upon the graduation ceremony, income at a particular time, do I then have loss of attraction if something unfolds or if the event is canceled. So at that point, I would lean heavily on your broker to consider every eventuality and seek out specialist cover. Because sometimes the mandatory cover is only covering the bare minimum. 

Matthew Westhoff
Yeah, and to lucys point around specialist insurance companies, I think with that comes underwriting expertise in these areas. And thats really what people want and need right now when you do have such unique risks popping up all. 

Lucy Straker
Over the world, Matt, so interestingly, expertise you mentioned, just as a segue, we’ve spoken a bit about deadly weapons protection, that act of salient. And I think the USP with a lot of those products that we sell is that you get services included within them. So a lot of businesses want something more than just a blank check from an insurance company. They want their hand holding at the worst case scenario. So the deadly weapon protection policy includes prevention services, you know, it includes a circumstance, it includes a trigger if someone brandishes a weapon, it includes crisis response, and then it has insurance indemnification on the back end. 

So what that means is if you were an institution that had purchased a deadly weapon protection policy prior to obviously all of this happening, you would have the ability to trigger the policy to say, you know what, I think things might be escalating. And I want advice and guidance in terms of how to actually make sure I bolster my security or put risk mitigation measures in place to get through to the end of term or to carry out my graduation ceremony. So that’s a great service that, as you know, as Matt highlighted, some institutions can’t afford to do that in house, and so you might be able to lean on your insurance carrier to offer those services. 

If, say, that protest turned violent and a weapon was brandished, the crisis response piece would then kick in and it would give you access to crisis management services, depending on the severity of the attack. But it could include dealing with the media, it could include counseling services, it could include additional security. So, as he mentioned, often specialist insurance companies have that specialist underwriting and expertise, but they quite often go far beyond traditional insurance options. By giving you specialist services as well. 

Zach
Have the risks associated with these policies changed in the past four years, taking in account, I guess, just the american context, but also feel free to branch out internationally. With the protests following the death of George Floyd and the 2020 election? 

Matthew Westhoff
Yeah, I think broadly speaking, I mean, the world is a riskier place than it was four years ago. I think that. And if history is any indication, we could be in for a rocky period. Right. We’re an election year in the US. We’ve seen these two candidates run against each other in the past. There’s a host of divisive issues on the line, increasing political risk both at home and abroad, issues in the Middle east, the ongoing crisis in the Ukraine. So I think the world is just really sort of a riskier place right now. And we could look at history as a guide, but also try to look forward and be a bit more proactive in understanding the risk and informing our clients about it and helping them in measures that could help mitigate the risk as well. 

Lucy Straker
I would just add to that. I think what’s interesting as well is when you consider SlcCHEN specifically, we previously looked at it as being on an isolated scale and one that affected primarily volatile territories. So when the south african riots happened, you know, yes, you were surprised somewhat, but it wasn’t unexpected. The same potentially with maybe Chile, but when you’re seeing it happening on our doorsteps, Americans, you know, risk managers alike, etcetera, surprised. We can no longer rely on the fact that actually we look at other territories and go, oh, it won’t happen to us, it’s not on our doorsteps, because it is literally happening in the streets around us. Those territories that we previously thought of as stable are erupting as globally. 

People are looking to make a stand whether that’s with regards to european wars, whether that’s with regards to Israel or whether that’s closer to home with more political divisive issues that Matt mentions. I think, again, what’s also unique is that with SRCC as apparel in particular, it has the ability to spread. So it crosses borders, as we’ve seen from the student protests extending not just across campuses but across states and now also across countries. We saw it happening in the UK a couple of days ago. So it’s human nature. It’s difficult to predict, and it has the ability to almost light that match and then just expand. 

Matthew Westhoff
I think, speaking globally, we talked a little bit about the election in the US. But interestingly enough, more than half the world’s population will be voting this year. So there’s going to be a lot of turnover and leadership, which obviously can lead to further geopolitical risk. 

Zach
This is an election year, as you both noted, there’s going to be a lot of elections, not just in the US but internationally. But I wanted to read this quote that I found very powerful and interesting from your report that was just published by your company. Quote, the world watched open mouthed as 2000 protesters banded together in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying the election and in the process raided the seat of administration, causing injury, property damage estimated at $1.5 million and the deaths of both police trying to protect the building and the rioters. End quote. Now that’s a very powerful excerpt from your latest report. Looking back on the horrific event, what were some worrying signs that now appear apparent? 

Lucy Straker
Now, I think the main thing is that people aren’t prepared. So whether that is through lack of security or power of misinformation, you mentioned, but we continue to be surprised by this. So as we mentioned a lot here, but businesses tend to be reactive and not proactive. In America especially, we’ve almost sat back and thought, actually, this risk doesn’t happen to us, it happens overseas, and that’s no longer the case. A lot of the stuff that we’re seeing, the violence in the US is happening, as I mentioned, on the streets. It’s happening right on our doorsteps. So we recently did our geopolitical report, which that comment comes from, and it said that 25% of businesses felt unprepared to deal with what’s ahead in this election year. I mean, that’s shocking. 

The fact that they themselves are admitting that they are unprepared already going into this election. You have the events on the 6 January, coupled with the fact that we’ve seen these candidates before, and that’s acting as a stepping stone to where we are today as a country. We are extremely divided. Politics, it’s already extremely emotional, and yet we still have months to go before the election. Add to that you’ve got this melting pot of global issues that’s playing out on us soil, whether that’s emotional topics or whether that’s wars across borders. And as I mentioned, we are still surprised by it. So that surprise, that admission of being unprepared, that’s the warning signs.

And whether that then plays out in lack of security or an inability to put various measures in place or, you know, some people might not have ever tested their crisis management, their crisis communication until this moment in time when you’ve got writing on the streets. If I were a business, I would also be buying, as I said earlier, that specialist insurance cover, but specifically for deadly weapons protection. Looking back again, you talk about rioting, but back in 2020, we also saw 51 mass shootings a month. That was up from 35 in 2019. You had 120 people killed a day and 108 people killed from gun violence in the US or causes. So not only do you have gun violence, unrest already occurring, a us election, emotional topics, wars that are translating onto us soil. 
So all of that is playing out and leaving businesses vastly unprepared. 

Matthew Westhoff
I think the one thing I’d add was that we also are seeing the sort of influence of social media and how quickly information can spread, whether that be misinformation or not. It could be easily spread. Things could be live streamed. These events could take off much quicker, and information could spread much faster than it ever could before. So it’s just another thing that’s increasing the risk. Environment. Is this something that we didn’t have 30 years ago or even 20 years ago? Certainly wasn’t at the level we have it today. I was just thinking something also sort of adding to the environment and the risk, really. 

Zach
That was my interview with Lucy Straker and Matthew Westhoff of Beasley. I hope you enjoyed it. To listen to more of our podcasts, go to leadersedge.com or find us on Soundcloud, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.