The scenarios and circumstances surrounding civil unrest in the UK are evolving and require insurers and brokers to be aware of the changing risks, according to a report by Synthetik Insurance Technologies, a Lloyd’s Lab graduate.

The report takes the form of four trigger-based vignettes or modelled scenarios, each set out with the intention of informing underwriting, claims readiness and continuity planning over the next 12-24 months.The modelled scenarios are based on protests surrounding asylum hotels in England in 2025 and represent four distinct risks that are shaping UK SRCC (strikes, riots, and civil commotion) exposure; local flashpoints, policing legitimacy, overseas conflict and domestic mobilisation, macro-financial stress.

The report suggests that losses scale non-linearly when unrest routes converge near dense retail, police, and transit hubs adding that, as a result, routes and corridor exposure are critical to understanding worst-case loss outcomes.

It also highlights that the duration of events is as significant as severity, supporting the need for event definition discipline and temporal aggregation awareness in SRCC underwriting. The research also warns that regional towns represent a layer of accumulation, particularly in commuter belts.

The report details the potential for SRCC losses to spread across the UK, with some scenarios seeing losses exceeding £4bn. It cites a surge in protest volumes, stretching policing, transport and retail security, and the probability that marches tip into opportunistic disorder as structural and behavioural factors that allow incidents to rapidly scale and evolve into multi-hub disturbances.

Tim Brewer, Synthetik COO, said: “SRCC in the UK has evolved from a background peril into a route-based accumulation risk that is critical to monitor accurately. The severity and spread of loss depend on how civil unrest manifests across spaces, creating concentrations of exposure that may not be visible in more generalised approaches, such as concentric rings. For underwriters and brokers, this represents a significant change in how risk is priced, monitored, and accumulated across portfolios.”

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