Film Review: Business Of Disaster By Laura Sullivan

In the documentary “Business of Disaster” ,Rick Young, the producer, and Laura Sullivan explored and shed light on how many insurance firms can profit off of disasters and the systems set in place for them to do so. The purpose of the film was to discover how and why insurance companies are able to make a good profit out of a disaster, while taking a stance against the insurance firms.
The documentary focuses on the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in Long Island, New York, where they depict how there hasn't been much progress into rebuilding. The victims of Hurricane Sandy, such as Doug Quinn, Nick and Diane Camerada, where despite have the maximum claim for flood insurance, like in Doug’s case, nothing was done and when there was an attempt the insurance companies dismissed it as a pre-existing condition; an example being the water damaging the
Another key stakeholders in the film where the government agencies such as the NYC Build it Back program and FEMA, where they argue that due to lack of oversight “we will provide the appropriate level of oversight because as I go back and
Sullivan writes “While thousands of homeowners like Quinn said they have not received the recovery help they need, our investigation found that their private insurance companies that administer the government's flood program made as much as an estimated $240 million to $406 million in profit annually over the past four years” (Sullivan), this helps strengthen the films argument through appealing to the audience's pathos. By evoking pathos Young and Sullivan further cement the strength of their argument by providing empirical data to their claims. Moreover, persuades the audience that it was unethical for private firms to profit from others