Mass shootings bring nominal damage to an infrastructure, yet property owners still choose to tear down and rebuild sites of violence. How can risk managers prepare?
When a young man bent on mass murder entered Sandy Hook Elementary on Dec. 14, 2012, no one could have predicted the loss and devastation that followed. Twenty school children, ages six and seven years old, and six adult staff members lost their lives.
Four years later, a would-be killer entered the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, killing 49 and wounding 53. This past February, a former student stormed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., fatally shooting 17 students and faculty.
In the wake of a mass shooting, the tremendous human cost is front and center. And rightfully so; the grieving never ends, and the lives lost cannot be replaced.
But the ever-prepared risk manager knows that other factors play a role during a mass shooting event: Namely, what happens to the building after the violence subsides?
“A challenge with this [risk] is that some active shooter events have resulted in minimal or no physical damage to an insured property,” said James English, property practice lead, Gallagher’s Great Lakes and Midwest…
