Malicious damage

On a London slip the line reads "riot, strike, civil commotion and malicious damage," and the last item is a peril in its own right. Malicious damage is harm caused intentionally by a person, without a crowd and without a political aim. It differs from riot by headcount (English law requires at least twelve people for a riot) and from terrorism by motive, which has to be political, religious or ideological. Graffiti on a facade, a truck driven into a storefront, a fire started by a dismissed employee: all of it lands here. On employees, French law is clear: the intentional misconduct excluded by Article L. 113-1 of the Insurance Code is that of the insured, and Article L. 121-2 makes the insurer answer for damage caused by people the insured is responsible for, however serious their fault. Theft and embezzlement are usually left to the crime policy. Underwriters frame the peril with its own deductible and with an exclusion for buildings left unoccupied beyond thirty or sixty days. The sticking point came with cyber, since a hacker who wipes servers also commits a malicious act. Since Lloyd's market bulletin Y5258 of July 2019, property policies must either cover or exclude cyber in plain words, and LMA 5400 and LMA 5401, both dated November 11, 2019, strip out data loss and loss caused by a cyber act or cyber incident. Read the detail: LMA 5400 writes back fire or explosion that follows a non-malicious cyber incident, never one that follows an attack, LMA 5401 writes back nothing, and the exact wording decides the claim.