Kenosha Auto Dealer Says Insurer Won’t Cover Riot Damage

Will insurance cover the losses when businesses are destroyed by rioters, as some commentators contend? One business in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is about to find out.

Two months ago, rioters torched the Car Source automobile dealership in Kenosha, Wisconsin, leaving behind a small sea of charred vehicles. 

The family business is one of over 40 businesses in Kenosha that were destroyed during two nights of riots directly following the Aug. 23 police shooting of Jacob Blake, 29. 

A police officer shot Blake, who is black, seven times in the back after police say he resisted officers responding to a call regarding a domestic dispute. 

Video of the shooting quickly went viral and led to two nights of violent riots, arson, and looting in the Midwestern city. 

After vandals burned 137 vehicles on the Car Source lot, co-owner Anmol Khindri contacted his insurance company to find out what it would cover. The company informed Khindri that his insurance doesn’t cover damage caused by riots, Kenosha News reported. 

“Our insurance company is finding their way out so they don’t have to pay for all this arson,” Khindri wrote on Car Source’s Go Fund Me fundraising page. 

Now, Khindri is working with a lawyer to convince his insurer to cover at least some of the damages, which he estimates to total about $2.5 million. 

Khindri did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on the situation. 

However, Khindri told Kenosha News that the city is pressuring him to clean up his lot and remove the burned vehicles. 

“He didn’t do this,” John Morrissey, director of Kenosha’s Department of City Inspections, told Kenosha News. “We understand that. But he does have to clean it up.”

But the problem is, Khindri told the newspaper, “if something does go through, the [insurance] adjuster is going to come … to look at the cars” and assess the damage. The adjuster can’t do that if the owners remove the vehicles, he said.

His burned-out dealership “does look bad, but [the city] let it all happen,” Khindri said. “They don’t want to admit it.”