Violence in Church

It was just another weekend service for churchgoers in this Milwaukee suburb when, without warning, they began to be gunned down by one of their own.

What a frightening way to start a story, but sadly this is not some Stephen King novel, but an actual news report. Being in the church insurance business, all kinds of thoughts come to mind as I read about this latest violent church incident.

These situations have become frequent enough that the company I represent actually had to create a special coverage just for "qualified violent incidents". The coverage provides for some funeral expense, trauma counseling and some money for media representation. I don't know if the church in Milwaukee is one of our insureds, but so far none of our 90,000 clients have had to use this coverage.

It's a sad commentary on our society today that someone who didn't like a particular sermon and has various personal problems feels that it's appropriate to kill the pastor and others while shooting up the church. Unfortunately it's happened several times in recent years.

Another change is also quickly coming to churches - lawsuits. At one time there was a moral exclusion to suing a church. People would seek any other alternative they could rather than drag a church into court. Not anymore. There are now lawyer groups conducting seminars for other lawyers on how to successfully sue a church. I personally think that one of the reasons that this has become popular is the child molestation problems in the Catholic church. Few will argue that suing the church under those circumstances is wrong, and that makes it easier to find other reasons to sue the church.

There's one other problem area involving churches and insurance - arson. Bill Clinton tried to make a big deal about "black churches burning" during his youth in Arkansas (though it was later shown that NO black churches had been burned as a result of racially motivated arson during the time in question), and today when I hear about a church fire, I can pretty much count on the cause being either the result of old, outdated electrical systems, or arson. And if it's arson, there's a real good chance that the arsonist is the pastor or a disgruntled parishioner. Pastors have been known to burn churches for money, and disgruntled members usually do it out of spite against the pastor or some perceived grievance against the church. All of this is adding up to higher and higher premiums.

The net effect is a dramatic rise in the cost of obtaining insurance, costs which will become increasingly burdensome to the churches and that will impact the church's ability to minister. Churches are already having to trim some of the their programs and plans in order to avoid activities that might open them up to a lawsuit, and churches with older buildings with out-of-date systems may find insurance hard or impossible to obtain at any price.