Item 1. Business

Forward Looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements in this document, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements which may be identified by the use of the words "expects," "believes," "anticipates," "should," "estimates" and similar expressions.

These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause our actual results and performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Factors and risks that may impact future results and performance include, but are not limited to, those described in Part 1, Item 1A, "Risk Factors" and in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) including:

general risks associated with the ownership and operation of real estate, including changes in demand, risk related to development, acquisition, and expansion of self-storage facilities, potential liability for environmental contamination, natural disasters and adverse changes in laws and regulations governing property tax, real estate and zoning;

risks associated with downturns in the national and local economies in the markets in which we operate, including risks related to current economic conditions and the economic health of our customers;

the impact of competition from new and existing self-storage and commercial facilities and other storage alternatives;

the risk that our existing self-storage facilities may be at a disadvantage in competing with newly developed facilities with more visual and customer appeal;

difficulties in our ability to successfully evaluate, finance, integrate into our existing operations, and manage properties that we acquire directly or through the acquisition of entities that own and operate self-storage facilities;

increased reliance on Google as a customer acquisition channel;

risks associated with international operations including, but not limited to, unfavorable foreign currency rate fluctuations, changes in tax laws, and local and global economic uncertainty that could adversely affect our earnings and cash flows;

risks related to our participation in joint ventures;

the impact of the legal and regulatory environment, including changes in federal, state, and local laws and regulations governing environmental issues, taxes, our tenant reinsurance business, pricing of our self-storage space, and labor;

risks of increased tax expense associated either with a possible failure by us to qualify as a real estate investment trust (“REIT”), or with challenges to the determination of taxable income for our taxable REIT subsidiaries;

risks due to a potential November 2020 California ballot initiative (or other equivalent actions) that could remove the property tax protections of Proposition 13 with respect to our California real estate and result in substantial increases in our California property tax expense;

changes in United States (“U.S.”) federal or state tax laws related to the taxation of REITs and other corporations;

security breaches or a failure of our networks, systems or technology could adversely impact our operations or our business, customer, and employee relationships or result in fraudulent payments;

risks associated with the self-insurance of certain business risks, including property and casualty insurance, employee health insurance and workers compensation liabilities;

difficulties in raising capital at a reasonable cost;

delays and cost overruns on our projects to develop or expand our facilities;

ongoing litigation and other legal and regulatory actions that may divert management’s time and attention, require us to pay damages and expenses or restrict the operation of our business; and

economic uncertainty due to the impact of war or terrorism.

These forward looking statements speak only as of the date of this report or as of the dates indicated in the statements. All of our forward-looking statements, including those in this report, are qualified in their entirety by this statement. We expressly disclaim any obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, new estimates, or other factors, events or circumstances after the date of these forward looking statements, except when expressly required by law. Given these risks and uncertainties, you should not rely on any forward-looking statements in this report, or which management may make orally or in writing from time to time, neither as predictions of future events nor guarantees of future performance.

General

Public Storage (referred to herein as “the Company”, “we”, “us”, or “our”), a Maryland REIT, was organized in 1980.

At December 31, 2019, our principal business activities were as follows:

(i)Self-storage Operations: We acquire, develop, own and operate self-storage facilities, which offer storage spaces for lease on a month-to-month basis, for personal and business use. We are the largest owner and operator of self-storage facilities in the U.S. At December 31, 2019, we have direct and indirect equity interests in 2,483 self-storage facilities that we consolidate (an aggregate of 169 million net rentable square feet of space) located in 38 states within the U.S. operating under the “Public Storage” brand name.

(ii)Ancillary Operations: We reinsure policies against losses to goods stored by customers in our self-storage facilities and sell merchandise, primarily locks and cardboard boxes, at our self-storage facilities.

(iii)Investment in PS Business Parks: We have a 42% equity interest in PS Business Parks, Inc. (“PSB”), a publicly held REIT that owns, operates, acquires and develops commercial properties, primarily multi-tenant flex, office, and industrial parks. At December 31, 2019, PSB owns and operates 27.6 million rentable square feet of commercial space.

(iv)Investment in Shurgard: We have a 35% equity interest in Shurgard Self Storage SA (“Shurgard”), a public company traded on Euronext Brussels under the “SHUR” symbol, which owns 234 self-storage facilities (13 million net rentable square feet) located in seven countries in Western Europe operated under the “Shurgard” brand name. We believe Shurgard is the largest owner and operator of self-storage facilities in Western Europe.

We also manage 55 self-storage facilities for third parties as of December 31, 2019. In order to further increase our economies of scale and leverage our brand, in 2018 we began an effort to expand the number of facilities we manage, through a dedicated internal sales, administration, and implementation team. During the year ended December 31, 2019, we added 22 facilities to our third party management platform. At December 31, 2019, we are under contract to manage 27 additional facilities, currently under construction, following their completion. It is uncertain how many third party managed facilities we will add to our platform over time. We also own 0.9 million net rentable square feet of commercial space which is managed primarily by PSB.

For all periods presented herein, we have elected to be treated as a REIT, as defined in the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”). As a REIT, we do not incur U.S. federal income tax if we distribute 100% of our “REIT taxable income” (generally, net rents and gains from real property, dividends, and interest) each year (for this purpose, certain distributions paid in a subsequent year may be considered), and if we meet certain organizational and operational rules. We believe we met these requirements in all periods presented herein and we expect to continue to elect and qualify as a REIT.

We report annually to the SEC on Form 10-K, which includes financial statements certified by our independent registered public accountants. We also report quarterly to the SEC on Form 10-Q, which includes unaudited financial statements. We expect to continue such reporting.

On our website, www.publicstorage.com, we make available, free of charge, our Annual Reports on Form 10- K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and all amendments to those reports as soon as reasonably practicable after the reports and amendments are electronically filed with or furnished to the SEC. The information contained on our website is not a part of, or incorporated by reference into, this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Competition

We believe that our customers generally store their goods within a three to five mile radius of their home or business. Our facilities compete with nearby self-storage facilities owned by other operators using marketing channels similar to ours, including Internet advertising, signage, and banners and offer services similar to ours. As a result, competition is significant and affects the occupancy levels, rental rates, rental income and operating expenses of our facilities.

In the last three years, there has been a marked increase in development of new self-storage facilities in many of the markets where we operate, due to the favorable economics of developing new properties. These newly developed facilities compete with many of the facilities we own, negatively impacting our occupancies, rental rates, and rental growth. This increase in supply has been most notable in Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Miami, New York, and Portland.

Ownership and operation of self-storage facilities is highly fragmented. As the largest owner of self-storage facilities, we believe that we own approximately 7% of the self-storage square footage in the U.S. and that collectively the five largest self-storage owners in the U.S. own approximately 16%, with the remaining 84% owned by regional and local operators.

The high level of ownership fragmentation in the industry is partially attributable to the relative simplicity of managing a local self-storage facility, such that small-scale owners can operate self-storage facilities at a basic level of profitability without significant managerial or operational infrastructure. However, we believe that the economies of scale inherent in this business result in our being able to operate self-storage facilities at a materially higher level

of cash flow per square foot than other operators without our scale. See “Business Attributes” below for further discussion of these economies of scale.

While this fragmentation offers us opportunities to acquire additional facilities over time, and our scale allows us to extract more cash flow from the properties we acquire, we compete for facilities that are marketed for sale with a wide variety of institutions and other investors who also view self-storage facilities as attractive investments. The amount of capital available for real estate investments greatly influences the competition for ownership interests in facilities and, by extension, the yields that we can achieve on newly acquired investments.

Recently, larger national operators (including ourselves) are offering to manage facilities owned by third parties on their platform for a fee (“Third Party Management”), and Google is offering a more convenient platform for small operators to compete with larger operators in paid search bidding campaigns to drive web traffic and increase reservations. These two developments have the potential to diminish the competitive advantage we have versus smaller owner/operators. The extent to which this trend becomes impactful is dependent on (i) how many smaller operators will choose to avail themselves of Third Party Management, (ii) the extent to which large national operators seek to increase the number of properties under Third Party Management and (iii) the extent to which smaller operators are attracted to Google’s marketing platform and are able to improve the efficacy of their marketing.

We generally own facilities in major markets. We believe that we have significant market share and concentration in major metropolitan centers, with approximately 70% of our 2019 same-store revenues generated in the 20 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (each, an “MSA”, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau) with the highest population levels. We believe this is a competitive advantage relative to other self-storage operators, which do not have our geographic concentration and market share in the major MSAs.

Business Attributes

We believe that we possess several primary business attributes that permit us to compete effectively:

Centralized information networks: Our centralized reporting and information network enables us to identify changing market conditions and operating trends as well as analyze customer data and, on an automated basis, quickly change each of our individual properties’ pricing and promotions, as well as to drive marketing spending such as the relative level of bidding for various paid search terms on paid search engines.

Convenient shopping experience: Customers can conveniently shop for available storage space, reviewing attributes such as facility location, size, amenities such as climate-control, as well as pricing, through the following marketing channels:

Our Desktop and Mobile Websites: The online marketing channel is a key source of customers. Approximately 75% of our move-ins in 2019 were sourced through our website and we believe that many of our other customers who reserved directly through our call center or arrived at a facility and moved in without a reservation, have reviewed our pricing and availability online through our websites. We seek to regularly update the structure, layout, and content of our website in order to enhance our placement in “unpaid” search in Google and related websites, to improve the efficiency of our bids in “paid” search campaigns, and to maximize users’ likelihood of reserving space on our website.

Our Call Center: Our call center is staffed by skilled sales specialists. Customers reach our call center by calling our advertised toll-free telephone numbers provided on search engines or our website. We believe giving customers the option to interact with a call center agent, despite the higher marginal cost relative to a reservation made on our website, enhances our ability to close sales with potential customers.

Our Properties: Customers can also shop at any one of our facilities. Property managers access the same information that is available on our website and to our call center agents, and can inform

the customer of available space at that site or our other nearby storage facilities. Property managers are trained to maximize the conversion of such “walk in” shoppers into customers.

Managerial economies of scale: The size and scope of our operations have enabled us to achieve high operating margins and a low level of administrative costs relative to revenues through the centralization of many functions, such as facility maintenance, employee compensation and benefits programs, revenue management, as well as the development and documentation of standardized operating procedures. We also believe that our major market concentration provides managerial efficiencies stemming from having a large percentage of our facilities in close proximity to each other.

Marketing economies of scale: Our major-market concentration relative to the fragmented ownership and operation of the rest of the industry, combined with our well-recognized brand name, improves our prominence in unpaid online search results for self-storage and reduces our average cost per “click” for multiple-keyword advertising. Such concentration and the resulting volume enables us to efficiently leverage systematic bidding strategies to maximize our return on investment across multiple keywords.

Brand name recognition: We believe that the “Public Storage” brand name is the most recognized and established name in the self-storage industry, due to our national reach in major markets in 38 states, our highly visible facilities, and our facilities’ distinct orange colored doors and signage. We believe the “Public Storage” name is one of the most frequently used search terms used by customers using Internet search engines for self-storage. We believe that the “Shurgard” brand, used by Shurgard, is a well-established and valuable brand in Europe. We believe that the awareness of our brand name results in a high percentage of potential storage customers considering our facilities relative to other operators.

Growth and Investment Strategies

Our ongoing growth strategies consist of: (i) improving the operating performance of our existing self-storage facilities, (ii) acquiring more facilities, (iii) developing new facilities and adding more self-storage space to our existing facilities, (iv) participating in the growth of our investment in PSB, and (v) participating in the growth of our investment in Shurgard. While our long-term strategy includes each of these elements, in the short run the level of growth in our asset base in any period is dependent upon the cost and availability of capital, as well as the relative attractiveness of available investment alternatives.

From time to time we explore expansion of our activities to other countries. Any such strategic expansion would most likely involve acquiring an interest in an existing operator’s platform. There can be no assurance that any such expansion will occur in the future or the timing thereof.

Improve the operating performance of existing facilities: We seek to increase the net cash flow of our existing self-storage facilities through maximizing revenues and controlling operating costs. We seek to maximize revenues through striking the appropriate balance between occupancy and rates to new and existing tenants, by regularly adjusting (i) our promotional and other discounts, (ii) the rental rates we charge to new and existing customers, and (iii) our marketing spending and intensity. We inform these pricing and marketing decisions by observing their impact on web and call center traffic, reservations, move-ins, move-outs, tenant length of stay, and other indicators of response. We also seek to control operating costs and provide a favorable experience to new, existing, and potential customers by leveraging information technology and our economies of scale, effectively overseeing our customer-facing and back-office property management personnel, and by providing convenient shopping options for the customer.

Acquire properties owned by others in the U.S.: We seek to capitalize on the fragmentation of the self-storage business through acquiring attractively priced, well-located existing self-storage facilities. We believe our presence in and knowledge of substantially all of the major markets in the U.S. enhances our ability to identify attractive acquisition opportunities. Data on the rental rates and occupancy levels of our existing facilities provide us an advantage in evaluating the potential of acquisition opportunities. Our aggressiveness in bidding for particular marketed facilities depends upon many factors including the potential for future growth, the quality of construction and location, the cash flow we expect from the facility when operated on our platform, how well the facility fits into

our current geographic footprint, as well as our return on capital expectations. From January 1, 2015 through December 31, 2019, we acquired an aggregate of 163 facilities from third parties at an aggregate cost of $1.4 billion. We will continue to seek to acquire properties in 2020; however, there is significant competition to acquire existing facilities, and self-storage owners’ desire to sell is based upon many variables, including potential reinvestment returns, expectations of future growth, estimated value, the cost of debt financing, as well as personal considerations. As a result, there can be no assurance as to the level of facilities we may acquire.

Develop new self-storage facilities and expand existing facilities: The development of new self-storage locations and the expansion of existing facilities has been an important source of growth. Since the beginning of 2013, we have expanded our development efforts due in part to the significant increase in prices being paid for existing facilities, in many cases well above the cost of developing new facilities. At December 31, 2019, we had a development pipeline to develop 12 new self-storage facilities and expand 35 existing self-storage facilities, which will add approximately 4.4 million net rentable square feet, at a cost of $619.2 million. Some of these projects are subject to significant contingencies such as entitlement approval. We expect to continue to seek additional development projects; however, the level of future development may be limited due to various constraints such as difficulty in finding projects that meet our risk-adjusted yield expectations, challenges in obtaining building permits for self-storage activities in certain municipalities, as well as challenges in sourcing quality construction materials, labor, and design elements.

Participate in the growth of PS Business Parks, Inc.: Our investment in PSB provides diversification into another asset type. PSB is a stand-alone public company traded on the NYSE. As of December 31, 2019, we have a 42% equity interest in PSB.

PSB seeks to grow its asset base in its existing markets as well as increase the cash flows from its owned portfolio. As of December 31, 2019, PSB owned and operated approximately 27.6 million rentable square feet of commercial space, and had an enterprise value of approximately $6.7 billion (based upon the trading price of PSB’s common stock combined with the liquidation value of its preferred stock as of December 31, 2019).

Participate in the growth of Shurgard: We believe Shurgard is the largest self-storage company in Western Europe. It owns and operates 234 self-storage facilities with approximately 13 million net rentable square feet in: France (principally Paris), Sweden (principally Stockholm), the United Kingdom (principally London), the Netherlands, Denmark (principally Copenhagen), Belgium (principally Brussels) and Germany. On October 15, 2018, Shurgard completed an initial global offering (the “Offering”) of 25.0 million of its common shares for €575 million in gross proceeds, and its shares commenced trading on Euronext Brussels under the “SHUR” symbol. As a result of the Offering (we did not acquire any additional common shares or sell any of our existing shares in the Offering), our equity interest in Shurgard decreased from 49% to 35.2%.

Customer awareness and availability of self-storage is significantly lower in Europe than in the U.S. However, with more awareness and product supply, we believe there is potential for increased demand for storage space in Europe. We believe Shurgard can capitalize on potential increased demand through the development of new facilities and acquiring existing facilities. From January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2019, Shurgard acquired 39 facilities from third parties for approximately $398.1 million, and has opened 10 development properties at a total cost of approximately $122.9 million. At December 31, 2019, Shurgard had contracts to acquire six properties and had six properties under development.

Financial Profile and Sources of Growth Capital

Capital Constraints as a REIT*:* While being a REIT allows us to minimize the payment of federal and state income tax expense, we are required to distribute 100% of our taxable income to our shareholders. This requirements limits cash flow from operations that can be retained and reinvested in the business, increasing our reliance upon raising capital to fund growth.

Access to Capital: Because raising capital is important to our growth, we endeavor to maintain a strong financial profile characterized by strong credit metrics, including low leverage relative to our total capitalization and operating cash flows. We are one of the highest rated REITs, as rated by major rating agencies Moody’s and Standard

& Poor’s. Our senior debt has an “A” credit rating by Standard & Poor’s and “A2” by Moody’s. Our credit ratings on each of our series of preferred shares are “A3” by Moody’s and “BBB+” by Standard & Poor’s. Our credit profile and ratings enable us to effectively access both the public and private capital markets to raise capital.

While we must distribute our taxable income, we are nonetheless able to retain operating cash flow to the extent that our tax depreciation exceeds our maintenance capital expenditures. In recent years, we have retained approximately $200 million to $300 million per year in cash flow. Capital needs in excess of retained cash flow are met with: (i) preferred equity, (ii) medium and long-term debt, and (iii) common equity. We select among these sources of capital based upon relative cost, availability, the desire for leverage, and potential constraints caused by certain features of capital sources, such as debt covenants. We view our line of credit, as well as short-term bank loans, as bridge financing.

We could also raise capital through joint venture financing or the sale of properties, however, we have no current plans to use these sources of capital.

Preferred equity: Preferred equity is an important source of long-term capital. While preferred equity’s coupon rates generally exceed interest rates on long-term debt, we believe the issuance of preferred equity is a favorable source of capital when available because it does not require repayment and, at our option, we can redeem the security after five years if, for example, market coupon rates have declined and we can reissue new securities at a lower rate.

Notwithstanding these favorable characteristics, the rates and market conditions for the issuance of preferred securities can be volatile or inefficient from time to time, and the amount that can be issued in any particular offering is generally limited to approximately $300 million at any one point in time, because demand for these securities comes primarily from retail investors rather than institutional investors.

The level of preferred equity outstanding has remained relatively constant, totaling $4.3 billion at December 31, 2014 and $4.1 billion at December 31, 2019. However, during this timeframe, we have regularly redeemed preferred shares pursuant to our redemption option, and issued new preferred equity at lower rates, reducing the average coupon rate from 5.88% at December 31, 2014 to 5.12% at December 31, 2019.

As of February 25, 2020, we believe that the market coupon rate for preferred securities approximates 4.75%. As of February 25, 2020, we have the option to redeem, with 30 days’ notice, the following series of preferred securities: our 5.375% Series V Preferred Shares ($495 million), our 5.200% Series W Preferred Shares ($500 million), and our 5.200% Series X Preferred Shares ($225 million). Redemption of such preferred shares will depend upon many factors, including the rate at which we could issue replacement preferred securities.

Medium and Long-Term Debt: We have increased our debt outstanding from $64 million at December 31, 2014 to $1.9 billion at December 31, 2019, and on January 24, 2020, we issued an additional €500 million ($551.6 million) of senior unsecured debt. Our $2.5 billion of debt outstanding at February 25, 2020 has an average interest rate of approximately 2.43%. While we have increased our use of debt as a capital source, and have broad powers to issue debt without a vote by our preferred or common shareholders, we expect to continue to remain conservatively capitalized and not subject ourselves to significant refinancing risk through effective “laddering” of our maturities.

Common equity: Except in connection with mergers, most notably a merger in 2006 with Shurgard Storage Centers, we have not raised capital through the issuance of common equity because lower cost alternatives have been available. However, we believe that the market for our common equity is liquid, with average trading volume in 2019 of approximately 885,000 common shares per day and, as a result, common equity is a significant potential source of capital.

Bridge financing: We have a $500.0 million revolving line of credit which we occasionally use as temporary “bridge” financing, along with short-term bank loans, until we are able to raise longer-term capital. As of

December 31, 2019, there were no borrowings outstanding on our revolving line of credit and no short-term bank loans.

Joint Venture Financing: We have participated in joint ventures with institutional investors in the past to acquire, develop, and operate self-storage facilities, most notably our joint venture to own Shurgard, prior to its Offering. Any future uses of joint venture financing will be based upon, among other considerations, the relative cost of joint venture financing as compared to other sources of capital. We do not have any current plans to utilize joint venture financing.

Sale of Properties: Generally, we have disposed of self-storage facilities only when compelled to do so through condemnation proceedings. Because we believe that we are an optimal operator of self-storage facilities, we have generally found that we cannot obtain sufficient value in selling properties because potential buyers cannot extract as much cash flow from the properties as we can. As a result, we do not presently expect to raise significant capital selling self-storage facilities; however, there can be no assurance that we will not.

Investments in Real Estate and Unconsolidated Real Estate Entities

Investment Policies and Practices with respect to our investments: Following are our investment practices and policies which, though we do not anticipate any significant alteration, can be changed by our board of trustees (the “Board”) without a shareholder vote:

Our investments primarily consist of direct ownership of self-storage facilities, as well as partial interests in entities we control that own self-storage facilities that we manage under the “Public Storage” brand name in the U.S. Our investments in self-storage facilities are described in more detail in Item 2, “Properties,” below.

We have an ownership interest in Shurgard, which owns storage facilities located in Europe under the “Shurgard” brand name.

Additional acquired interests in real estate will primarily include the acquisition of properties from third parties, as well as to a lesser extent, partial interests in entities in which we already have an interest.

To a lesser extent, we have interests in existing commercial properties (described in Item 2, “Properties”), containing commercial and industrial rental space, primarily through our investment in PSB.

Facilities Owned by Unconsolidated Real Estate Entities

At December 31, 2019, we had ownership interests in PSB and Shurgard (each discussed above), which we do not control or consolidate.

PSB and Shurgard’s debt has no recourse to us. See Note 4 to our December 31, 2019 financial statements for further disclosure regarding our investments in PSB and Shurgard. In addition, PSB’s public filings are available at its website, www.psbusinessparks.com and on the SEC website, and Shurgard’s public filings and publicly reported information can be obtained on its website, https://corporate.shurgard.eu and on the website of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, http://www.bourse.lu.

Canadian self-storage facilities owned by Tamara Hughes Gustavson

At December 31, 2019, Tamara Hughes Gustavson, a member of our Board of Trustees, owned and controlled 63 self-storage facilities in Canada. These facilities operate under the “Public Storage” tradename, which we license to the owners of these facilities for use in Canada on a royalty-free, non-exclusive basis. We have no ownership interest in these facilities and we do not own or operate any facilities in Canada. If we chose to acquire or develop our own facilities in Canada, we would have to share the use of the “Public Storage” name in Canada. We have a

right of first refusal, subject to limitations, to acquire the stock or assets of the corporation engaged in the operation of these facilities if their owners agree to sell them. Our subsidiaries reinsure risks relating to loss of goods stored by customers in these facilities, and have received approximately $1.5 million, $1.3 million and $1.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively. Our right to continue receiving these premiums may be qualified.

Limitations on Debt

Our revolving credit facility, U.S. Dollar Notes and Euro Notes contain various customary financial covenants, including limitations on our ability to encumber our properties with mortgages and limitations on the level of indebtedness. We believe we complied with each of these covenants as of December 31, 2019.

Employees

We had approximately 5,900 employees in the U.S. at December 31, 2019 who are engaged primarily in property operations.

Seasonality

We experience minor seasonal fluctuations in the demand for self-storage space, with demand and rental rates generally higher in the summer months than in the winter months. We believe that these fluctuations result in part from increased moving activity during the summer months.

Insurance

We carry property, earthquake, general liability, employee medical insurance and workers compensation coverage through internationally recognized insurance carriers, subject to deductibles. Our deductible for general liability is $2.0 million per occurrence. Our annual deductible for property loss is $25.0 million per occurrence. This deductible decreases to $5.0 million once we reach $35.0 million in aggregate losses for occurrences that exceed $5.0 million. Insurance carriers’ aggregate limits on these policies of $75.0 million for property losses and $102.0 million for general liability losses are higher than estimates of maximum probable losses that could occur from individual catastrophic events determined in recent engineering and actuarial studies; however, in case of multiple catastrophic events, these limits could be exceeded.

We reinsure a program that provides insurance to our customers from an independent third-party insurer. This program covers customer claims for losses to goods stored at our facilities as a result of specific named perils (earthquakes are not covered by this program), up to a maximum limit of $5,000 per storage unit. We reinsure all risks in this program, but purchase insurance to cover this exposure for a limit of $15.0 million for losses in excess of $5.0 million per occurrence. We are subject to licensing requirements and regulations in several states. Customers participate in the program at their option. At December 31, 2019, there were approximately 935,000 certificates held by our self-storage customers, representing aggregate coverage of approximately $3.2 billion.