Latest Catastrophe Headlines
All the headlines from our Catastrophe Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Aon’s April Catastrophe Report: Storms Deal Blow in U.S.; Floods Take 78 Lives in Africa
May 10 2018 // During April, five separate storm systems caused severe thunderstorms across the United States, the strongest of which affected the Plains, Midwest, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and the Northeast, with nearly 70 tornado...
Hawaii Insurance Commissioner Says Homes Destroyed by Kilauea Lava are Covered
May 9 2018 // Hawaii’s insurance commissioner has made it clear that homes destroyed or damaged in the recent lava flow into a Hawaii neighborhood are covered for the damage under homeowners insurance policies. Gordon Ito, who has...
Texas Windstorm Association Seeking $175M Assessment for Harvey Losses
May 9 2018 // The board of directors of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association has authorized staff to seek regulatory approval for a $175 million assessment to TWIA’s insurance company members for losses associated with...
Hawaiian Volcano Slopes Offer Affordable Paradise, Risks
May 8 2018 // As lava crawled down Leilani Road in a hissing, popping mass, Cheryl Griffith stood in its path and placed a plant in a crack in the ground as an offering to the Native Hawaiian volcano goddess, Pele. Griffith lives in...
Florida’s Ex- Commissioner McCarty Says Banks ‘Need Skin In’ Mitigation Game
May 8 2018 // Policymakers need to find a way to get banks involved in property mitigation if Florida is to improve its hurricane resiliency, according to a former state insurance commissioner. Banks are currently unmotivated to protect...
CoreLogic® Offers Unique Perspective to HayWired Earthquake Scenario in Conjunction with the United States Geological Survey (USGS)
May 7 2018 // This post is part of a series sponsored by CoreLogic. Situated along the eastern edge of the Pacific Ocean’s “Ring of Fire,” California is in the middle of earthquake country, and planning for the next...
US Disaster Assistance OK’d for County After Oklahoma Wildfires
May 7 2018 // Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin says home and business owners in Dewey County who sustained uninsured damage from wildfires can now receive disaster assistance from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Fallin says the...
Lava from Hawaii Volcano Destroys Dozens of Homes
May 7 2018 // Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano has destroyed 26 homes and spewed lava hundreds of feet into the air, leaving evacuated residents unsure how long they might be displaced. Hawaii County officials said another four...
Global Reinsurers’ Price Hikes Not Sustainable But Profitability to Improve: Fitch
May 7 2018 // Fitch Ratings’ outlook for global reinsurance remains negative given intense market competition, the influx of alternative capital that continues to pressure pricing and persistently low investment yields that strain...
Quake Scenario: More than 1M Bay Area Homes Could Suffer Extensive Damage
May 7 2018 // More than a million San Francisco Bay Area residents would face extensive damage to their homes after a major earthquake on the Hayward fault, according to a new earthquake scenario developed by the U.S. Geological...
Florida’s Citizens Reopens More Than 25K Hurricane Irma Claims
May 7 2018 // Citizens Property Insurance Corp. says it has reopened about 37 percent of its Hurricane Irma claims, according to a statement from the Florida insurer of last resort. The insurer says the reopening of claims is part of...
Small Businesses Hampered by Uninsured Losses After 2017 Hurricanes: Fed Reserve
May 7 2018 // Small businesses in the United States struggled with uninsured damages and lost revenue following a record-breaking year of hurricanes and wildfires in 2017, according to a Federal Reserve survey published in April. The...
ICT’s Documentary Shows Hurricane Harvey’s Catastrophic Damage
May 4 2018 // The Insurance Council of Texas (ICT) announced it premiered a new documentary on Hurricane Harvey this week before 1,000 first responders at this year’s Coastal Bend Hurricane Conference in Robstown. The video...
Hawaii Volcano Eruption Prompts Evacuations
May 4 2018 // Nearly 1,500 residents were ordered to evacuate from their volcano-side homes after Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano erupted, sending molten lava to chew its way through forest land and bubble up on paved streets. Volcano...
Insurers Offering Discounts on Tornado-Resilient Homes in Oklahoma
May 2 2018 // Dozens of insurance companies are now offering discounts to Oklahomans who have built or retrofitted their homes to certain tornado-resilient standards, the Oklahoma Insurance Department announced. A new law went into...
3 Small Earthquakes Occurred off Southern California Ocean
May 2 2018 // Several minor earthquakes well offshore have lightly shaken some Southern California coastal communities, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quakes occurred before dawn Tuesday near the southern end of San...
Global Catastrophe Bonds Set Q1 Record: Aon
May 2 2018 // Global catastrophe bond issuance broke a first-quarter record, come in at nearly $3.6 billion for Q1 2018 as the market expanded into new areas, Aon Securities said in its latest report. The $3.58 billion in insurance...
No Tornadoes in Oklahoma in 2018 – Yet
May 1 2018 // This year’s weather on the Southern Plains has an odd twist: Oklahoma has yet to record its first tornado, the deepest into the year it’s gone without one since 1962. Although a drought has dried up moisture...
How Parametric Products Work to Supplement Indemnity Policies: RIMS
Apr 30 2018 // Corporate risk managers are buying parametric insurance policies to supplement, not replace, their indemnity-based policies. The parametric products worked well with customers hit by the 2017 hurricanes, according to...
Recovery Efforts Underway in North Carolina After Tornado Damages 1K Structures
Apr 27 2018 // An aerial view of significant damage to W.M. Hampton Elementary School in Greensboro, N.C., Monday, April 16, 2018. Two storms, reported as tornadoes, toppled trees and ripped apart homes in Greensboro and Reidsville...
