India protests test boundaries of SRCC cover

RECENT youth-led protests in India have increased scrutiny of strikes, riots and civil commotion (SRCC) exposures, according to Rahul Gaglani, India war and terrorism underwriter at Markel.

The issue has become more pressing as protests that began over examination paper leaks developed into a wider youth movement and spread across the country in July. Demonstrations led to clashes with police and increased pressure on the government, with education minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigning later that month.

Further unrest over alleged examination and recruitment irregularities followed in August. Thousands of job aspirants clashed with police during protests in the state of Jharkhand last month, while demonstrations over alleged test paper leaks also prompted police intervention in Bihar.

“For underwriters, the distinction between SRCC and broader political violence is not simply about why an event started, but what it becomes,” Gaglani tells Insurance Day.

“A protest may begin as civil unrest, but if it becomes more organised, spreads quickly across locations or starts to target state institutions or critical infrastructure, it can move further along the political violence spectrum.”

Gaglani adds that underwriters are also looking at how authorities respond and whether disruption could extend into supply chains, as the potential severity of civil unrest losses becomes harder to ignore.

Industry analysis has also recorded more than $10bn of insured SRCC-related losses since 2017, according to Gaglani. That includes more than $200m potentially arising from Nepal’s September 2025 youth-led anti-corruption protests, which were driven by frustration over governance, corruption and limited economic opportunities, and more than $50m from riots in Indonesia in August 2025 following anger over lawmakers’ pay and housing allowances.

Risk-selective approach

The scale of mobilisation in India adds another layer to that risk. Data from risk analytics firm Verisk Maplecroft shows the country averaged around 247,000 protest participants per month over the past year, suggesting that mass demonstrations have become an “enduring feature of the operating environment”.

The scrutiny of political violence also stands apart from softer conditions across much of the wider insurance market. Aon’s second-quarter 2026 review found abundant capacity and flexible underwriting across Asia overall, but said underwriting criteria for war and political violence had tightened amid geopolitical instability.

“The market is becoming more disciplined around SRCC exposures, but I would not describe this as a wholesale retreat from the class,” Gaglani says. “What we are seeing is a more risk-selective approach rather than a reduction in appetite across the board.”

That selectivity can translate into tighter terms or higher deductibles for some risks, particularly around government districts, transport hubs, retail concentrations and locations with elevated protest and riot indicators, according to Gaglani.

“This environment is encouraging more buyers to look at standalone SRCC or broader political violence cover, not because capacity has disappeared, but because dedicated solutions often provide greater certainty and more appropriate protection for today’s evolving threat landscape,” he says.

Beyond pricing and capacity, escalation can create uncertainty over which peril should respond to a loss. Gaglani says real-world events do not always fit neatly within policy definitions.

As an event evolves, it can become more difficult to determine how a loss should be categorised and whether it falls within the intended scope of cover.

Intent can make that classification harder. Gaglani says determining whether damage was opportunistic, criminal, politically motivated or connected to a broader organised movement becomes more complex when unrest continues over an extended period.

He adds the priority is not to eliminate every potential grey area, but to make policy intent as clear as possible. This is placing greater emphasis on clearer peril definitions, transparent trigger mechanisms and dialogue between insurers and insureds before a loss occurs.

Scale and spread

The scale and geographic spread of unrest also create challenges at portfolio level. Gaglani says SRCC portfolio management increasingly involves aggregation monitoring, location clustering, accumulation mapping and scenario testing rather than considering each insured location in isolation.

“When determining whether losses constitute one event or multiple occurrences, there is rarely a simple answer,” he adds. “Unrest may have one underlying trigger but involve different levels of violence and losses occurring over several days or weeks.”

Losses linked by a common cause could be treated as part of one continuing event, while differences in actors, timelines and damage patterns across individual cities could support treatment as separate occurrences. Gaglani says those scenarios were bringing greater attention to occurrence wording, aggregation clauses and event definitions.

The indicators used to assess civil unrest are also changing.

“Political stability and historical loss experience remain important as traditional indicators, but we are paying far greater attention to how quickly events can mobilise and spread through digital communication channels,” Gaglani says.

Economic pressures and social sentiment are also carrying greater weight in assessments of how unrest could develop, he adds.

Those changing risk indicators are also feeding into the tools used to assess SRCC exposures, Gaglani highlights.

“The deployment of SRCC catastrophe modelling and predictive risk-scoring methodologies reflects this broader shift towards a more forward-looking understanding of both the frequency and severity of unrest-related events,” he concludes.