Latest Catastrophe Headlines
All the headlines from our Catastrophe Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Florida Judge Invalidates Windstorm Credit Forms; Regulator Appeals
Dec 3 2012 // A Florida administrative law judge has ruled that some forms used by insurers to determine a homeowner’s windstorm premium credits are invalid because they don’t take into account measures taken to protect...
Deadly 2012 Hurricane Season Ends
Dec 3 2012 // The 2012 Atlantic hurricane season that spawned the destruction of Sandy and Isaac has come to an end as one for the record books. There were 19 named storms in what meteorologists consider an above-average year that tied...
Weathered Income
Dec 3 2012 // Do poor- and middle-income residents in the United States suffer more, economically, from extreme weather than affluent people? According to a new report on the impact of extreme weather events that have occurred over the...
Hurricane Center Seeks to Improve Storm Surge Warnings
Nov 30 2012 // Friday marks the end of an Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season where the greatest devastation was caused by water rather than wind, U.S. National Hurricane Center Director Rick Knabb said. Accordingly, the center is...
S&P Report: Reinsurers Discuss Industry Lessons Learned From Hurricane Sandy
Nov 30 2012 // A recent report, “Reinsurance Industry Leaders Discuss Lessons Learned From Hurricane Sandy,” published Nov. 29, 2012, on RatingsDirect, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, notes that...
Tarrant County, Texas, Leads State in Hailstorms: NOAA
Nov 29 2012 // The residents of Fort Worth, Texas, and its suburbs in Tarrant County share the dubious honor of being the area most pounded by hailstorms than in any other part of the state, according to data compiled from the National...
Wind Deductibles and Sandy: What It Means for Total Insured Losses
Nov 28 2012 // On October 29, 2012, when Hurricane Sandy made landfall along the northeast coast—a year to the day since the last northeastern superstorm and fourteen months since Hurricane Irene — the wind speeds recorded by the...
Kentucky Testing Dam for Possible Earthquake Damage
Nov 28 2012 // Officials in eastern Kentucky are conducting tests on a dam to see if a recent 4.3 magnitude earthquake centered near Blackey enlarged the flow of a small stream at the bottom of the structure. Inspectors from the Kentucky...
Lloyd’s Report Focuses on ‘Gap’ in Disaster Costs and Insurance Coverage
Nov 28 2012 // A new report from Lloyd’s notes that the “the world has been battered by natural catastrophes in recent years, revealing a serious gap between the economic cost of natural catastrophes and the levels of insured...
Wildfires, Hail Take Toll On Colorado Home Insurance
Nov 27 2012 // Colorado now ranks among the top 10 for the highest share of homeowners insurance claims paid out due to catastrophes. The Insurance Research Council says catastrophes triggered only 26 percent of the claims made on...
2012 Below Average Year for Tornadoes in Alabama Thus Far
Nov 27 2012 // Forecasters say 2012 has been a below-average year for tornadoes in Alabama, at least so far. While Alabama has 40 tornadoes in an average year, the National Weather Service said only 32 tornadoes occurred in the state...
California City Building ‘Tsunami-Resistant’ Port
Nov 26 2012 // It doesn’t matter if the earth sways in Chile, Alaska or Japan, the formation of the sea floor along the U.S. West Coast generally aims any tsunami surges at the tiny California port town of Crescent City. Churning...
Swiss Re Estimates Claims from Hurricane Sandy at around $900 Million Net
Nov 26 2012 // Swiss Re announced that its estimates of claims from Hurricane Sandy are around $900 million, net of retrocession and before tax. The bulletin warned, however, that “this estimate is subject to a higher than usual...
Tsunami Debris Reported Closer to Washington Coast
Nov 21 2012 // A Seattle oceanographer who has been tracking debris from the Japanese tsunami says a huge debris field, hundreds of miles across, is about 400 miles off the Washington coast. Retired University of Washington oceanographer...
Colorado Springs Wildfire Expected to Create Jobs
Nov 19 2012 // Economists say a wildfire that burned 346 homes and scorched 28 square miles in the Colorado Springs area over the summer could provide an economic boost over the next five years. Claims for the contents and homes damaged...
Texas Commissioner: Windstorm Will Be an Issue for Texas Lawmakers
Nov 19 2012 // There may not be a hefty number of property/casualty insurance issues taken up by the Texas Legislature when it convenes in 2013, but there’s certain to be one dominating topic to counter any lack of diversity. That...
Aon Benfield’s Impact Forecasting Launches Algeria, Morocco Quake Models
Nov 15 2012 // Impact Forecasting, the catastrophe model development center of excellence at Aon Benfield, announced the launch of new Algeria and Morocco earthquake model to achieve more reliable estimates of the earthquake losses to...
AIR Announces Deal with Navigators for Cat Models
Nov 15 2012 // AIR Worldwide announced that The Navigators Group, Inc., an international commercial property/casualty specialty insurance holding company, has selected AIR’s CLASIC/2™ and CATRADER® catastrophe modeling solutions...
Hailstorms Are the Costliest Natural Peril in Texas
Nov 14 2012 // Hurricanes may garner more attention but in Texas, hailstorms, not hurricanes, are the most damaging weather events that Texans face annually, according to the state’s insurance regulators. And, unlike hurricanes,...
Wildfires Will Cost Wyoming Over $40M
Nov 14 2012 // State Forester Bill Crapser says this year’s wildfires have consumed all the money the state had set aside for fire suppression. Crapser says the season depleted both the state’s entire fire suppression...
