Disinformation

On May 22, 2023, a fake image of an explosion near the Pentagon spread across social media, amplified by verified accounts; the S&P 500 dipped briefly before the denial put it to rest. On December 6, 2024, Romania's Constitutional Court annulled the first round of the presidential election, after intelligence reports described an online campaign, run largely on TikTok, in favor of Călin Georgescu. In between, the World Economic Forum ranked misinformation and disinformation as the top global risk over a two-year horizon, in both its 2024 and 2025 reports. Disinformation is the deliberate spread of false information, to deceive, destabilize or make money; misinformation is the same falsehood shared in good faith. The mainstream market offers no dedicated cover. The exposure comes in through doors underwriters already know. Reputation first: a company hit by a false rumor loses customers, which only a reputational harm cover, rare and sublimited, can reach. Then fraud, such as a deepfake of an executive ordering a wire transfer, covered or not depending on the crime policy and its fraud definition. Then political violence, when a rumor puts a crowd in the street. For a political risk underwriter, disinformation acts mainly as an accelerant: it shortens the time between tension and riot, without creating the insured event on its own. One qualification: when a state runs it, it falls under hybrid warfare, and attribution comes back into the exclusions. Not to be confused with a cyberattack, which hits an information system; disinformation works on its readers.