What was worse? The George Floyd riots Or Jan 6th?

The George Floyd riots, which erupted across the United States following his death on May 25, 2020, caused extensive property damage. Estimates peg the insured property losses at between $1 billion and $2 billion nationally, according to Property Claim Services (PCS), a firm that has tracked civil disorder-related insurance claims since 1950. This figure, reported by Axios in September 2020, marks the George Floyd protests as the costliest civil disorder event in U.S. history in terms of insured damages, surpassing the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which caused about $1.4 billion in inflation-adjusted (2020) dollars.

In Minneapolis–Saint Paul, where the unrest began, the damage was particularly severe. Local officials estimated approximately $550 million in property damage to around 1,500 locations, making it the second-most destructive local unrest in U.S. history, again trailing the 1992 LA riots. This figure, cited by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s administration and corroborated by sources like the Minneapolis Star Tribune, includes losses from arson, looting, and vandalism. About 60% of these financial losses in the Twin Cities were uninsured, leaving many business owners to cover costs out of pocket.

Nationwide, the $1–2 billion in insured damages doesn’t capture the full scope. Uninsured losses, theft, policing costs, lost revenue, and long-term economic impacts—like declining property values or business closures—push the total cost higher, though exact numbers remain elusive due to inconsistent reporting and indirect effects. For context, the riots spanned over 140 cities, with significant destruction in places like Minneapolis, where nearly 200 properties were hit by arson alone, per FBI and ATF data.

The scale reflects both the geographic spread—impacting 20 states—and the intensity of the unrest from May 26 to June 8, 2020. While most protests were peaceful (a 2020 Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project study found 93% of 7,750 protests were nonviolent), the violent minority caused outsized harm. Comparatively, the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, often contrasted in public discourse, resulted in about $1.5–2.7 million in damage—orders of magnitude less.

So, the George Floyd riots’ quantifiable damage ranges from $1–2 billion in insured losses, with Minneapolis alone at $550 million, but the true cost, factoring in uninsured and indirect losses, likely exceeds these estimates significantly.