Hockey Riot A Sad Stop on Wild 2011 CAT Ride

As the Boston Bruins skated around the Vancouver Canucks' rink with the Stanley Cup following their 4-0 win in Game 7 the other night, commentators on TV, on Twitter and elsewhere began to stir with news from outside the arena of rowdy crowds.

By midnight, I was watching a CTV feed of people smashing windows and burning cars. I'm a big hockey fan, as some of you probably know, and I was familiar with the 1994 Vancouver riot and the occasional dustups in Montreal... but after last year's Olympics, and Vancouver's general reputation over the past couple years as a city populated mostly by quiet hipsters, I was pretty shocked to see the level of the destruction. This looks like something out of a war movie.

Today, insurance adjusters are out surveying the damage, preparing to pay claims. The image of adjusters surveying a devastated landscape is a familiar archetype from the past few months, following tornadoes in Japan and New Zealand, and tornadoes across the midwest and southern US.

I talked to several companies about new insights and tactics they're gleaning from using claims technology following those events in our most recent digital issue. A few of them shared anecdotes of people who had lost everything. Perhaps some of the participants in this event should hear the same stories, about how it feels to be powerless as nature's wrath tears through your home or business. They might not be so quick to cause that destruction next time.

Nathan Golia is senior editor of Insurance & Technology. He joined the publication in 2010 as associate editor and covers all aspects of the nexus between insurance and information technology, including mobility, distribution, core systems, customer interaction, and risk ... View Full Bio