There's no doubt that superheroes are extremely popular in today's society. Avenger's Endgame boasts Canada's biggest opening weekend ever, grossing close to 30 million dollars. Superheroes are the modern world's mythmaking, and many people rely on them for escape from as well as education about our world.
But if superheroes existed in real life, it would certainly be a different story from the ones you see on the silver screen. With super-strong people in capes and tights jumping around the city saving the world, business owners would do well to get themselves superhero insurance, just in case someone gets a little reckless in their attempts to save the world.
Superhero movies focus on the superheroes themselves. But how would the average Joe live in a world rife with superheroes? Keep on reading to find out what would happen in case our greatest fantasies became true.
What Kind of Damage Do Superheroes Make?
First of all, you have to take into account the world superheroes live in. Superheroes generally exist in worlds full of crime. And not just criminals stealing little old ladies purses, criminals hell-bent on world. . . and sometimes universe, domination.
Superheroes usually live in cities. Batman has Gotham, Superman has Metropolis, and Spiderman has New York City on steroids. With over half of the world's population living in urban locations, you can bet there are a lot of opportunities for superheroes to cause some serious damage.
Let's take a look at some types of damage superheroes might cause.
Property Damage
Oh boy, this is a big one.
In almost every superhero movie out there, there's a shot of a building being blown up. Or perhaps a store getting its window smashed in. Or even a house having a person's body getting thrown through it.
Usually, these incidents of massive property damage are thrown over the shoulder as just part of the job for superheroes. But in real life, they can cause some serious property damage.
Hurricane Katrina of 2005 caused 81 billion dollars of property damage and left many people out on the street and destitute. If a high-voltage superhero fight came to town, there's no telling how many people would have their apartment buildings collapsed.
Car Damage
While a car is a property, auto insurance is viewed legally as its own separate thing. In our world, cars are a convenient — if slightly annoying — way to get from one place to another. In a superheroes world, cars are often used as a great way to break their falls when they're plummeting to the pavement.
You can't blame superheroes for this. After all, most of them have some sort of power of flight, super-speed, or ultra-cool vehicle that takes them from one place to the other.
However, if they put themselves in the shoes of the common person, they would see just how important a car is. While they can dust themselves off with a few bruises and maybe a headache, the person who had their car crushed has to go to a shop, see if they can get their car fixed, wait a week, find out that they can't get it fixed even after the mechanic told them they could, file an insurance claim, wait for it to come, buy a new car, and then hope to God that another superhero doesn't come crashing through it. We wonder how the nature of claims would change for our friends over at Onlia if this were the case.
In a world full of superheroes, it would be a miracle if anyone continued to ride their car at all.
Injuries/Death
And what if that person didn't get out of their car before Megaboy crashing through it? There's a very good chance that they'd suffer from some serious injuries or death.
Civilian casualties are rarely talked about in superhero movies. Often times the villain will threaten civilians to try to enact their evil plan, or just to mess with the superhero. The hero usually saves the citizens without too many people dying, and the film acts as though it's a happy ending.
But what if a civilian broke their arms while being swept up in super-strong arms? While this might seem minor in the grand scheme of things, those people would then have to suffer pain, go to the doctor, and file an insurance claim, especially if they were travelling.
You also have to take into account the mental health of the people who almost got blown up by a supervillain. In a world as full of mega-crime as Gotham city, it would be amazing that anyone did anything at all in spite of the constant trauma they had inflicted on them.
Who Cleans Up After Superheroes?
Strangely enough, there's a canonical answer to this question. In the Marvel Universe, the Damage Control team is a group of superheroes and civilians designed to clean up superhero messes. They're paid to not only clean but rebuild — and do it fast.
Apparently, Damage Control also salvages any alien technology after an extra-terrestrial attack. This would be an upside to a "realistic" world of superheroes. Technologies that bad-guys develop could easily be repurposed, and we might have the next disruptor technology years early.
Who knows, maybe something like Blockchain would have been discovered back in the '80s, and we'd all completely live our lives based on bitcoin. The world would be a strange place if we shared it with superheroes.
In DC comics, there's less of a stable answer. Most people agree that the JLA (Justice League of America) probably has a branch that deals with damage control and insurance.
This presents a unique and interesting situation, where the Superheroes themselves would be responsible for cleaning up after damage. Perhaps the DC comics world is one with less government recognition, and so needs to rely on superheroes to clean up their own mess.
We're most likely never going to see a deep social-commentary-related superhero movie comparing the marvel clean-up system to the DC one, but this writer thinks that it would be incredibly insightful to see how these different worlds turned out.
What would happen if Marvel's Damage Control Crew went on strike? What if the Justice League of America clashed with the city government? And then what if they threatened to stop cleaning up their messes if their demands weren't met?
Who knows, in one of these worlds, superheroes might even have the opportunity to top some of the biggest scams in history.
What Would Insurance Claims Look Like If We Lived Among Superheroes?
For one thing, they'd probably be a lot more common.
As stated earlier, in a world with nigh-constant destruction, insurance claims would likely fly left and right. Insurance companies would have to make sure they had a lot of money to not wind up destitute.
There's a very real possibility that a world with superheroes would develop their own kind of superhero insurance. After all, the history of insurance started long before cars were invented, and auto insurance is now one of the most important kinds.
The presence of heroes in large cities makes it likely that most cities would pass laws protecting buildings from superhero-related incidents. But who knows, this might get even more complicated.
Maybe a super-resistant material would be developed, and anyone who didn't use it would be less likely to receive a claim. This would likely cause all sorts of political issues because people with less money could not afford the super-proof buildings.
Speaking of the political, there's a good chance that some insurance companies would consider living in a city where superhero incidents happen often a pre-existing condition. This could cause problems.
Considering that different sorts of cars and different sorts of companies have different insurance policies, it's a very real possibility that each superhero would have their own insurance policy attached to them. Getting injured by Superhero might entitle you to more money than getting injured by Batman; this could cause interesting superhero rivalries.
Let's look at the DC world for a second. If the Justice League is taking care of cleanup, there’s also a real possibility that the Justice League has an insurance arm. Who knows what would happen if the Justice League caused so much damage that they didn’t have the money to pay for all of the insurance coverage they promised; this could potentially lead to the Justice League going out of business, and crime taking over the city.
Superhero Insurance Would Be A Good Idea — Albeit A Little Complicated
At the end of the day, there's no telling how any complications the existence of superheroes would cause. One thing is for sure, however, insurance isn't going anywhere. If a superhero popped up next week, you can bet the world's top insurance companies would scramble to create a superhero insurance coverage plan.
Get a quote with us on the best insurance companies today. Who knows, you might even find one that provides superhero insurance.
