Insurance payouts fall far short of what's needed to rebuild Twin Cities
With half of losses not covered, gutted businesses plead for help.
By Maya Rao and Jeffrey Meitrodt Star Tribune
August 8, 2020 — 8:49pm
Soot darkens the letters on the sign for 7 Mile Fashion, months after rioters torched the Lake Street shopping center where it stands.
The store that thrived for 24 years is now a mass of debris. The buildings on either side are boarded, the ruins cordoned off by a chain-link fence.
The Ahn family that owns 7 Mile Fashion estimates they lost $2.5 million here and at two other stores attacked on Nicollet Avenue and W. Broadway. Yet insurance will cover just $600,000 because they had not updated their policy in many years.
Private insurance won’t come close to paying the cost of rebuilding what was lost in the riots following George Floyd’s death.
Though Gov. Tim Walz has estimated that total losses will exceed $500 million, insurance companies have informed the Minnesota Department of Commerce that they will be covering a maximum of $240 million in riot-related damage. In the 5-mile stretch of Minneapolis that sustained the heaviest destruction, uninsured losses among local small-business owners are at least $200 million, according to the Lake Street Council.
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https://www.startribune.com/insurance-payouts-fall-far-short-of-what-s-needed-to-rebuild-twin-cities/572054742/
