The business of protection: insuring urban violence risks in contemporary Brazil

In Brazil’s major urban centres, auto and cargo theft constitute a vibrant illicit economy. Many of these assets are insured, and a vast array of private security providers operate to recover stolen goods on behalf of insurance companies. Drawing on ethnographic research with both major insurers and small players in this protection market, this paper examines how financial institutions navigate high-risk urban environments and sheds light on the effects of the financialization of security. It argues that, beyond actuarial rationality, the everyday practices of insurance governance also rely on the outsourcing of violence and on the entrepreneurialization of the public forces of order. In addition to offering advertised services such as risk analysis, armed escort, investigation and asset recovery, these entrepreneurs of violence specialize in operating within the grey areas between legality and illegality, and between public and private authority.