The explosion at Beirut’s port will blow a hole in insurers’ balance-sheets

A HOMEOWNER IN Achrafieh does not care if the investigation is a sham, only that it rules that the explosion was an accident. Otherwise his insurance policy will pay nothing. The owner of a ruined boutique down the hill in Mar Mikhael would prefer the opposite result: her policy covers terrorism, unlike most, and will compensate her for an estimated $100,000 in repairs and lost inventory. The manager of a car-rental firm wonders if his explosion cover will include one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, since his vehicles were flattened by falling debris, not the blast itself.