Owner of Limo Torched in Washington D.C. Protest Says Insurance Unlikely to Pay

Insurance likely won’t cover the damage to a limousine set on fire during an Inauguration Day protest in Washington, the limo company president says.

Muhammad Ashraf, the president of the Virginia-based Nationwide Chauffeured Services, said Monday that replacing the car could cost tens of thousands of dollars. Insurance would cover vandalism but may not cover his situation because the car was damaged in a riot, he said.

More than 230 people were arrested after self-described anti-capitalists began breaking the windows of businesses, the limo and an emergency vehicle Friday, the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Court paperwork says the group did more than $100,000 in damage.

Ashraf said the limousine’s driver had taken a client to The Washington Post’s building in downtown Washington when the vehicle was damaged and later set on fire. Ashraf declined to give the client’s name but said the company had been hired by the individual, not the newspaper.

Ashraf said his family-owned business, which is based in Alexandria, Virginia, has a fleet of approximately 30 limousines, party buses and other vehicles and has been in business for 25 years. He called the limousine’s destruction “a very sad situation.” He said the limousine was one of two vehicles of that kind owned by the company and was in heavy demand around the inauguration. Not having the vehicle means he’s losing business, he said.

“I just can’t imagine why people had to do these things,” he said, adding that the car’s driver was shaken by the incident.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the company.