Sabotage as a property peril
A subversive act against property carried out for a political, religious or ideological purpose, covered by political violence policies and squeezed between ordinary malicious damage and an act of war.
On July 26, 2024, a few hours before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, coordinated arson attacks hit signaling installations on three SNCF high-speed lines. SNCF put the number of travelers affected over the weekend at about 800,000. The underwriter's first question is classification: sabotage, malicious damage, or the act of a state? In London market political violence wordings, sabotage is a subversive act committed for political, religious, ideological or similar purposes, including to influence a government or put the public in fear. Motive makes the peril. Without it, the same cut cable falls under the malicious damage section of the property policy, with its deductible and exclusions. With a state behind it, the loss slides toward the war or hostile government act exclusion, and the sabotage policy stops responding. That makes it a question of proof. The insured shows that the insured peril occurred; the insurer relying on war has to prove the exclusion, and attribution to a state comes late, if at all. For Nord Stream, in September 2022, no government was officially named, and German investigators later targeted Ukrainian nationals. The adjuster therefore works with an open criminal investigation and claims of responsibility that cannot be checked. One caveat: an ordinary property policy often covers malicious damage, and dedicated sabotage cover mainly fills the terrorism and sabotage exclusion that the same property policy carries.
On December 3, 2022, gunfire at two substations in Moore County, North Carolina, cut power to about 45,000 Duke Energy customers for several days; the perpetrators were not publicly identified in the months that followed.
- SNCF Réseau, statements of 26 and 27 July 2024 on the malicious acts against the high-speed lines
sabotage, act of sabotage, sabotage peril, sabotage cover
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