Aaron Doyle

Catastrophe risk, insurance and terrorism

This article empirically investigates how the terrorist activity of September 11, 2001, was addressed by the insurance industry and government in the United States. It shows that the insurance system worked reasonably well in compensating losses suffered, albeit with various tribulations. It also demonstrates that the insurance industry, along with government as the ultimate risk manager, imaginatively reconfigured markets to continue terrorism insurance coverage in many contexts. The findings challenge many of Ulrich Beck’s contentions about catastrophe risks and insurability. At the same time, they indicate the fragility of the insurance system. Insurers’ perceptions and decisions about uncertainty – with potential for windfall profits as well as catastrophic losses – create crises in insurance availability and promote new forms of inequality and exclusion. Hence, while the insurance industry is a central bulwark against uncertainty, insurers can also play a key role in fostering it.

'Their Risks Are My Risks': On Shared Risk Epistemologies, Including Altruistic Fear for Companion Animals

This paper builds in two ways on previous sociological studies concerning how people experience risk. Firstly, we discuss how risk is experienced in shared or altruistic ways as concern for others, and thus how emotions regarding risks produce solidarity. Secondly, we consider in particular how the others for whom one becomes concerned are not always people, and are sometimes instead companion animals such as cats and dogs, thus expanding the analysis beyond anthropocentrism and towards ‘animal-human symmetry’. Previous studies that have examined the shared or altruistic elements of fear (eg Warr, 1992) focus narrowly on crime. Those that broaden out to consider other risks besides crime (Lupton and Tulloch, 2002) do not include companion animals as subjects about whom people have concern. The article draws examples from open-ended interviews conducted in Ottawa, Canada, demonstrating how these themes arise as people narrate their experiences of risk, and pointing to the need for future research.