Latest Catastrophe Headlines
All the headlines from our Catastrophe Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Arizona Judge Oks $3.7M In Restitution For Wildfire
Nov 13 2012 // A judge says two cousins who accidentally started the largest wildfire in Arizona history will have to pay more than $3.7 million in restitution. The amount covers the loss of homes and other property, cleanup from the...
Texas Commissioner: Windstorm Will Be an Issue for Texas Lawmakers
Nov 13 2012 // Among the hundreds of bills filed by Texas lawmakers on the first day of filing for the 2013 legislative session are a handful of proposals related to property/casualty insurance. There are bound to be more, but one...
2 Rare, Late-Season Tornadoes Hit Minnesota’s Twin Cities
Nov 13 2012 // Officials with the National Weather Service say two weak tornadoes touched down late Saturday on the south edge of the Twin Cities’ metropolitan region in Minnesota. Meteorologist Chris Franks tells the Star Tribune...
CCRIF Partners with Seismic Research Center for Quake, Volcano Risk
Nov 13 2012 // The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) and the Seismic Research Centre (SRC) of The University of the West Indies have entered into a partnership to enhance the Accelerometric Network in the Eastern...
Feds: Levee System Did Not Cause Isaac Flooding
Nov 12 2012 // Federal officials say in a report released Nov. 9 that improvements to the New Orleans-area levee system did not cause Hurricane Isaac’s storm-surge flooding of areas in Louisiana that were not inundated during...
Superstorm Sandy Stress Scenarios Won’t Impact Insurer Ratings: Fitch
Nov 8 2012 // Even an extreme $40 billion scenario for property/casualty insurance industry losses from Hurricane Sandy would not drive material rating changes for insurers, analysts at Fitch Ratings said today. In a report providing a...
7.4 Magnitude Quake Shakes Active Guatemala Region: AIR Analysis
Nov 8 2012 // According to catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide, at 10:35:50 UTC on Nov 7, 2012 an earthquake estimated at a magnitude of 7.4 occurred at a depth of 41.6 km (25.9 miles) about 15 miles off the coastal town of...
Some Homeowners Unexpectedly Hit With ‘Windstorm Deductible’
Nov 7 2012 // In the immediate days after Superstorm Sandy, officials in the Northeastern states declared that hurricane deductibles would not apply to Sandy claims. Officials from northeastern states including New York, New Jersey and...
Colorado Springs Wildfire Expected To Create Jobs
Nov 7 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. Insurance claims for the contents and...
Researchers Still Learning About 2002 Alaska Earthquake
Nov 6 2012 // The Denali Fault earthquake only rumbled for about 3 minutes when it shook Interior Alaska a decade ago, but some of the reverberations of that powerful seismic event are still being felt today. The 7.9 magnitude quake,...
Sandy Exposed Hospitals’ Lack of Disaster Preparedness
Nov 6 2012 // Kim Bondy was in New Orleans seven years ago when Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, and scores of patients died in flooded hospitals cut off from power. She never thought that she might face that danger herself. But...
Sandy Losses Within Hurricane Models, Manageable: Reinsurer Hiscox
Nov 5 2012 // Superstorm Sandy won’t put insurers’ finances under severe strain, and may allow them to push through a profit-boosting rise in prices next year, Hiscox , the biggest London-listed reinsurer, said on...
Hurricane Sandy Losses Expected to Top Irene’s
Nov 5 2012 // Hurricane Sandy appears to have easily caused more losses than last year’s Hurricane Irene, but final totals will be hard to come by for some time because of the scale of the disaster, catastrophe forecasting...
Hurricane Sandy’s Impact
Nov 5 2012 // Hurricane Sandy slammed into the New Jersey coastline on Oct. 29, bringing 80 mph winds and hurling a record-breaking 13.88-foot surge of seawater. Following the storm’s landfall, more than 7 million residences and...
Texas Lawmaker: TWIA’s Ike Litigation Costs Still Rising
Nov 5 2012 // Texas’ insurer of last resort for coastal property has paid out more than $1.2 billion in individual litigation costs related to 2008’s Hurricane Ike, one state lawmaker says. Information released by Rep. Larry...
Trends
Nov 5 2012 // It’s interesting to see what’s on people’s minds as potential catastrophes develop. Google’s top search on Oct. 29 as Hurricane Sandy approached the East Coast were for the “Weather...
‘Big One’ Looms in Minds of Experts Before California ShakeOut
Nov 5 2012 // A day before more than 9 million people in California took part in a massive nationwide earthquake drill in mid-October, U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones stood in a room full of risk professionals in the San...
Alaska Setting for Japanese Documentary on Tsunami
Nov 5 2012 // A Japanese broadcasting group has been filming a documentary about tsunami debris in Kodiak, Alaska. NHK, Japan’s national public broadcasting station, is filming a documentary about tsunami debris in Alaska to raise...
9.4 M Drop, Cover And Hold On
Nov 5 2012 // More than 9.4 million Californians reportedly practiced the “Drop, Cover, and Hold On” drill in mid-October in preparation for a major earthquake. The 2012 Great California ShakeOut involved record numbers of...
Hurricane Deductibles Won’t Apply for Sandy in Del. Penn., R.I., D.C.
Nov 4 2012 // [Update: Maine also announced this week that hurricane deductibles would not apply for Sandy-related claims in the state. The Maine Bureau of Insurance told Insurance Journal Monday, Nov. 5, that hurricane deductibles will...
