When Everything Is an “Act of God,” Who Is Accountable?

This might feel off-brand, but it’s been on my heart.

What Is an “Act of God”?

As a snowstorm moves through this weekend, many of us are thinking about weather in practical terms. Travel plans change. Trees feel heavier under snow. The small risks of daily life suddenly feel closer to the surface.

A few months ago, we experienced how quickly weather can turn into a financial problem, and how quickly accountability can disappear.

A tree branch fell and smashed the window of our car. There was no accident. No warning. No dramatic moment we witnessed. Just broken glass and an immediate repair we had to deal with. When we looked into insurance coverage, neither our own insurance nor the building’s insurance would cover it. The explanation was short and final.

It was considered an “Act of God.”

At the time, that phrase felt less like an explanation and more like an ending. Not because the damage wasn’t real, but because once those words were used, the conversation stopped. No follow-up questions. No discussion of responsibility. No shared accountability.

The term “Act of God” shows up often in insurance policies, leases, and legal documents. It sounds theological, but it isn’t meant to be. It’s legal language that has been around for centuries. It comes from English common law, when courts needed a way to describe events caused by natural forces rather than human action. Storms, floods, earthquakes, and lightning were placed into a category where no one could reasonably be held responsible.

That language still exists today, but the world it operates in has changed.

In modern insurance, an Act of God generally refers to a natural event considered outside human control and not preventable through reasonable care. When that label is applied, it usually means no person or organization is considered responsible. The damage is treated as unavoidable. Financial accountability is removed. Coverage depends entirely on the fine print of a policy, not the impact of the loss.

This is the part that stayed with me.

Calling something an Act of God does more than describe what happened. It ends the question of accountability. Once an event is framed as inevitable, there’s no need to ask whether something could have been anticipated, maintained, or mitigated. Responsibility isn’t debated. It’s dismissed.

What makes this unsettling is how familiar that logic feels beyond insurance. We see versions of it everywhere. Harm happens, but responsibility is blurred. Systems fail, but no one is clearly accountable. Rules exist, but enforcement is inconsistent. Language is used to explain outcomes instead of addressing causes.

Laws, policies, and contracts only work when accountability exists alongside them. Without accountability, they lose their force. They become symbolic rather than functional. Consequences fade, not because harm didn’t occur, but because responsibility can’t or won’t be assigned.

We’re seeing this tension play out in real time. In Minnesota, recent deaths connected to federal immigration enforcement have raised urgent questions about accountability, transparency, and oversight. When lives are lost and responsibility is spread across agencies, procedures, and jurisdictional lines, communities are left asking the same basic questions. Who is responsible? Who investigates? Who answers for what happened? These aren’t abstract concerns. The absence of accountability has real consequences.

When accountability disappears at the institutional level, the cost doesn’t disappear. It shifts. Individuals absorb it through repairs, replacements, legal battles, grief, and unexpected expenses. Often this happens quietly, without meaningful recourse. There’s rarely a clear path to appeal, and even more rarely a sense that responsibility can be traced back to a decision, a policy, or a failure to act.

Over time, this adds up. People start expecting less protection and more personal exposure. Risk becomes something you manage on your own. Preparedness becomes a personal responsibility instead of a shared one. You plan for gaps because experience teaches you that systems may not intervene when you need them to.

Snowstorms make this easier to see. Fallen branches, frozen pipes, and power outages sit in a gray area between nature and infrastructure. The damage feels natural, but the cost feels very human. Calling it an Act of God simplifies that complexity by placing the cause entirely outside human control, even when accountability could reasonably be questioned.

This is why the definition feels so broad. Wind damage counts. Flooding from heavy precipitation counts. So do “ice-related incidents,” a phrase that sounds harmless until you realize how often it’s used to smooth over harm. Ice on roads. Ice on power lines. Ice as weather. And now, ICE as an agency, where deaths are explained through procedures, jurisdiction, and language that similarly disperses responsibility. Different contexts. Same outcome. When harm occurs, the wording cools the moment. Accountability freezes.

That language is broad by design. Large-scale events, whether environmental or institutional, are expensive and difficult to insure, regulate, or litigate. Calling them unavoidable or procedural allows systems to step back without ever saying they are doing so.

In our case, the outcome was simple. We paid over a thousand dollars out of pocket to replace the window. No appeals. No shared responsibility. No negotiation. Just a repair bill and the understanding that this was considered no one’s fault.

Snowstorms slow everything down. They give us space to notice the systems we rely on and the language those systems use when something breaks. “Act of God” sounds neutral, even poetic. In practice, it often signals the absence of accountability.

Understanding that doesn’t stop the weather. But it does make the rules we’re living under a little clearer.