History Main / HeroInsurance

* Played straight in Skyway Mechanix where the state super-hero tells a police officer to send a bill to the "World Hero Alliance - Hero Insurance Department" after the chaotic neutral protagonists destroy a motel and blow up a gas station.

* The very first episode of ''WesternAnimation/LegendOfKorra'' shows Korra successfully stopping a gang from harassing a shop keeper--and in the process doing more damage to the neighborhood than the thugs ever would have done on their own. When the police call her on this, her attempts to evade arrest cause even more damage. Tenzin steps up and offers to cover the damages as part of the agreement for Korra's bail.

* Subverted in ''TheMadScientistWars''. Xyon City has an "abandoned warehouse district" that is paid for by a tax on explosives. When old abandoned warehouses are destroyed, new ones are built. The reasoning seems to be that if people are going to blow stuff up, it might as well be in a designated area away from the important stuff. Played straight in that this doesn't always work.

* In ''Series/BandOfBrothers'', during Operation Market Garden, Easy Company comes across a Dutch bell tower that the Germans are using to spot for artillery. They ask a British tank commander to destroy the tower, but the commander refuses, citing that they are under orders to minimize collateral damage in friendly countries.

* In ''BandOfBrothers'', during Operation Market Garden, Easy Company comes across a Dutch bell tower that the Germans are using to spot for artillery. They ask a British tank commander to destroy the tower, but the commander refuses, citing that they are under orders to minimize collateral damage in friendly countries.

* Averted in the ''Series/NCISLosAngeles'' episode "[=LD50=]", when the mall where the heroes stopped botulimin from being released billed the organization for the fish that died from their method of stopping the botulimin (holding the broken vial in the tank)
-->'''Hetty''': The Koi fish in that fountain went belly up from the botulimin. Oh dear, when one so rarely uses that phrase literally. Anyway, the mall has billed us $72,000.
--->'''Kensi''': For fish?
--->'''Hetty''': Yes.
--->'''Kensi''': (to Callen) Do you know what I could buy with that?''
* In ''Series/DoctorWho'', the Doctor causes destruction and mayhem on a regular basis, on one occasion draining the River Thames, and he ''never'' sticks around to clear up the mess.
** It is kinda hard to charge him for damages considering he can simple escape by jumping around through time and space. Not to mention changing his appearance every now and then.
** Easily explains his mixed reputation among those people who know about him, though.
** This is why the original Torchwood had him listed as an enemy in their charter. They were founded when Queen Victoria saw him in action; she knighted him for his heroism then banished him for his crimes (and for being to damn cheerful about the deadly werewolf attack).
* In ''CommonLaw'', one of the leads foils a convenience store robbery... by driving his car through the front of the store. Doesn't seem cost effective.

* Heavily lampshaded in ''{{Dai-Guard}}'', where the company that owns the titular giant robot is responsible for all collateral damage the robot causes, and numerous insurance-related forms have to be signed before it can be deployed. It's FURTHER lampshaded in one episode where by the time all the paperwork is completed, Dai-Guard has already been deployed and beaten the MonsterOfTheWeek.

** Heavily averted; in fact it's a running gag. She's basically what you get if you turn [[{{Trigun}} Vash the Stampede]] into a sorceress and take away the insurance girls. While the audience/readers and her close friend know she is a hero, her path of destruction has made her a feared villainess in her world, to the point a SympatheticInspectorAntagonist got away with arresting her with the charge of ''being Lina Inverse''. Even when she does something truly heroic and redeemable, she blows it by losing her cool and nuking the town she just saved. She rarely gets to claim her reward because it will likely be the down payment on rebuild the town from the ground up around the huge crater she just made.

* In Man of Steel, Superman and General Zod's final battle in Metropolis causes a lot of property damage, but averted in a sense as the city has been mostly abandoned/evacuated at this point.

* Zod causes a lot of the havoc in ''Film/ManOfSteel'' with his terraforming gravity well but Superman probably would have to take out a policy on his deeds in the movie. He fights Zod and/or his warriors in Smallville and later Metropolis despite being outclassed, and so a lot of damage happens. His attempts at knocking or throwing them away are invariably countered, at one point reaching Earth's orbit. Most of the time he's smashed into buildings but sometimes he does the same (granted, into apparently empty or unfinished ones). The damage is compounded by failed attempts by the US military to intervene. Superman later also willfully trashes a multi-million dollar satellite that has been snooping on him to make a point to the military to get off his back.

* In ''HarryPotter and the Deathly Hallows'', after a battle in a cafe, Harry and the others take the time to actually repair the damage.

* Zod causes a lot of the havoc in ''Film/ManOfSteel'' with his terraforming gravity well but Superman probably would have to take out a policy on his deeds in the movie. He rips apart his hometown of Smallville in one of the initial skirmishes and then during the final struggle with Zod he makes no effort to take the conflict away from Metropolis, instead choosing to battle inside the city limits and through the various skyscrapers. People are rightfully terrified of the destructive battle. In the scene following the final brawl, he also (willfully) trashes a multi-million dollar satellite that has been snooping on him to make a point to the Army to get off his back.

* Blatanlty subverted in TheIncredibles as a turning point in the plot

* Zod causes a lot of the havoc in ''Film/ManOfSteel'' with his terraforming gravity well but Superman probably would have to take out a policy on his deeds in the movie. He rips apart his hometown of Smallville in one of the initial skirmishes and then during the final struggle with Zod he makes no effort to take he conflict away from Metropolis, instead choosing to battle inside the city limits and through the various skyscrapers. People are rightfully terrified of the destructive battle. In the scene following the final brawl, he also (willfully) trashes a multi-million dollar satellite that has been snooping on him to make a point to the Army to get off his back.

* Zod causes a lot of the havoc in ''Film/ManOfSteel'' with his terraforming gravity well but Superman probably would have to take out a policy on his deeds in the movie. He rips apart his hometown of Smallville in one of the initial skirmishes and then during the final struggle with Zod he makes no effort to take he conflict away from Metropolis, instead choosing to battle inside the city limits and through the various skyscrapers. People are rightfully terrified of the destructive battle.

** However, there is a subversion in "TheGreatestStoryNeverTold". After the League's battle with Mordru leaves whatever city they're in utterly fucked by collateral damage, the League helps clean up.
** When Superman was supposed dead, Lobo showed up to replace him. Problem with this guy is, to defeat an evil, he was prepared to drop a car on him. But when it proved unnecessary, he launched the car at a building!
** Earlier in the Superman animated series, Bizzario tries to help save the city, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero except doing more harm then good]], such as "saving" a building being demolished by throwing the wrecking ball (which almost landed on a wedding), "fixing" a draw bridge (that a tanker was about to pass under), and "saving" Lois Lane from the real Superman (by knocking over the Daily Planet globe).
* In ''SupermanDoomsday,'' Supes throws Doomsday through a building on more than one occasion, and eventually defeats him by taking him to orbit and slamming him into the ground in the middle of Metropolis hard enough to level the entire block. In real life, Supes would've racked up a higher death toll than all the villains in the movie put together. And he may well have, as this being a direct-to-DVD release rather than a TV episode, people were being explicitly killed in the show...but he was "dead" at that point, and he ''did'' stop Doomsday, who had wiped out entire ''worlds'' on his own.
** To put this in perspective, Metropolis is essentially in the same place as New York City. In the comic arc that this was based on the Justice League engaged Doomsday in central Ohio, and would have been completely wiped out if Superman hadn't shown up when he did. The battle between the two stretched over a third of the country, and left more than a thousand dead in its wake. The government's position was that anything that could take that kind of punishment was a serious enough threat that even losing Metropolis completely would have been a small price for putting it down.

Heroes never get in trouble for [[RooflessRenovation plowing through buildings]], demolishing half the city, [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality killing seventeen people and injuring three]], [[HeroStoleMyBike taking things that do not belong to them]], or [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking jaywalking]], as long as they're being ''heroic''. The necessary explanation seems to be that they've got very, very good insurance, that will take care of ''everything'', including the bribes for the people who want to sue the hero's spandex-clad bottom off.

This is sometimes [[{{Handwave}} handwaved]] with the heroes actually ''[[LampshadeHanging mentioning]]'' that they've got insurance that will cover this -- and is actually a specific rule featured in the old ComicsCode -- but it's unclear how any insurance company could do this and still turn a profit. Logically, they shouldn't be able to pay for the on-panel destruction unless they are also collecting mammoth premiums from many other superheroes who ''don't'' make big claims. So whenever Superman punches through a wall, somewhere, a less-violent hero like Oracle sees her premiums go up? That money has to come from somewhere!

* During the Cold War, US military in Germany had personnel specifically tasked with paying civilians for damages it caused during maneuvers off bases who usually accompanied the troops. [[/folder]]

->''"It's tough to do a good deed. Just look at your professional good deed doers. Your ''{{LoneRanger}}''s, your Franchise/{{Superman}}, your Franchise/{{Batman}}, your Franchise/SpiderMan, your Elasticman. They are all wearing disguises, masks over their faces. Secret identities. Don't want people to know who they are. It's too much aggravation. 'Superman, yeah thanks for saving my life, but did you have to come [[ThereWasADoor through my wall]]? I'm renting here, I've got a security deposit. What am I supposed to do?'"''

->''"It's tough to do a good deed. Just look at your professional good deed doers. Your lone rangers, your Franchise/{{Superman}}, your Franchise/{{Batman}}, your Franchise/SpiderMan, your Elasticman. They are all wearing disguises, masks over their faces. Secret identities. Don't want people to know who they are. It's too much aggravation. 'Superman, yeah thanks for saving my life, but did you have to come [[ThereWasADoor through my wall]]? I'm renting here, I've got a security deposit. What am I supposed to do?'"''

* Blatanlty subverted in TheIncredibles as a turning point in the plot

* This trope is either [[DeconstructedTrope horribly deconstructed]] or hilariously parodied in the Marvel [[AlternateContinuity What If]] story "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe]]". In short, Frank Castle's family is killed in the crossfire of a superhuman battle and he, with the financial support of a group of people who've been similar victims of "collateral damage", goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge on the [[KillEmAll entire superhuman community]].
* Subverted with Comicbook/{{Batman}} as, being rich, he actually ''can'' afford to pay for damage. Was mentioned in the video game of ''Film/BatmanBegins'', in which Batman damages a large section of water mains to chase away some corrupt cops from a scene. As he makes his plan, Alfred notes that Wayne Enterprises will likely be making a donation to the water board the next day.

*** ''Somehow''? {{Batman}} is a member! Superman even glances at him for confirmation before saying that.

* Periodically lampshaded in ''AstroCity''. Characters will sometimes make passing references to the city's "great public works" program, usually in the wake of yet another superhero battle. The introduction to the "Local Heroes" TPB includes a newspaper clipping that mentions Honor Guard using alien AppliedPhlebotinum to repair damage after one of their fights.

** Somewhat ironically, as technology has advanced to the point that the USA practically DOES have (insanely expensive) bullets that can turn corners and hit 'bad guys' of their own volition, the complaints about collateral damage have only increased. To be fair, US forces are notorious for being trigger-happy[[hottip:*: Not in the 'liking to fire guns' sense, but rather the 'shooting anyone/everyone who looks like they might be a threat, just in case' sense]] and far too eager to use fire-support in (heavily) populated areas so as to save mere handfuls of their own people from injury or death. This is the logical conclusion of the 'politics of military casualties', which see the USA trying to lose as few of its own people as possible regardless of the drop in operational efficiency or rise in (foreign, of course) civilian casualties that entails. It's not a one-to-one trade-off either, as the use of (somewhat imprecise and extremely lethal over wide areas) fire-support to assist in the infantry actions that are the essence of anti-guerilla warfare arguably results in far more (civilian) casualties and deaths than a more precise (but military-casualty-heavier) approach. Following on from this, the argument is essentially that the USA should be more noble and demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice (more of) its soldiers in order to avoid killing drastically larger numbers of innocent civilians by accident. Much like Britain, France, etc, the USA 'does' at least apologise more often than not and try to compensate the surviving family members of the deceased (just you try getting such treatment from Russia, for instance)

* Played with in ''MassEffect'', in which Shepard is a Spectre and has broad operational authority to do whatever the heck he/she feels like but still gets chewed out by his/her superiors for any collateral damage.
** Sparatus, the Turian Councillor, particularly isn't amused when Shepard destonates a ''nuke'' to destroy Saren's cloning facility on Virmire. Although technically, the nuke idea came from the Salarian Special Tasks Group and Shepard just helped them infiltrate the facility to deliver the payload.

### If Alice is a professional or trained volunteer firefighter and was called in to rescue Bob, she cannot sue Charlie.