Latest Catastrophe Headlines
All the headlines from our Catastrophe Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Lessons from Andrew
Sep 10 2012 // Hurricane Andrew hit South Florida with winds topping 160 mph on August 24, 1992, devastating several communities. According to Gary Kerney, of Verisk’s Property Claims Services, the insurance industry had never seen...
Disasters Happen
Sep 10 2012 // If it’s not one thing it’s another. Drought, wildfires, hurricanes, floods. Whatever happened to the lazy, hazy days of summer? Texas mostly dodged the drought and wildfire bullets this year, but the state...
Wind Claims from Hurricane Isaac Only Part of the Story
Sep 10 2012 // Insurance claims from Hurricane Isaac, which made landfall in far Southeast Louisiana on Aug. 28, could climb to $1.2 billion, according to one catastrophe modeling firm. AIR Worldwide estimated losses at $1.2 billion, but...
Lower Catastrophe Losses Boost P/C Insurers’ Earnings in Q2: Moody’s
Sep 10 2012 // U.S. property/casualty insurers reported significantly higher net income in the second quarter of 2012 relative to 2011, driven by lower catastrophe losses and increased growth in earned premiums, said Moody’s...
Analysis: Florida’s Insurers, Reinsurance and Catastrophic Storms
Sep 10 2012 // Since 1996, Demotech has rated most of the homegrown Florida domiciled insurers. Our efforts have focused on the assignment of Financial Stability Ratings® (FSRs) to all financially stable insurers, start-ups as well as...
Texas DA Investigating State Farm Hurricane Claims
Sep 9 2012 // Texas investigators have opened a criminal probe into how State Farm handled what may turn out to be thousands of insurance claims from Gulf Coast homeowners involving damage from Hurricane Ike in 2008, officials...
Criminal Investigation Launched Over Hurricane Ike Claim
Sep 7 2012 // Texas homeowner Jim Warner has been locked in a legal battle with State Farm over denial of insurance claims for the damages to his home from Hurricane Ike. That battle was just upgraded to a category five by the Travis...
Aon Benfield August Cat Report Focuses on Isaac; Insurance Cover Disparity
Sep 7 2012 // Aon Benfield’s latest edition of its Global Catastrophe Recap report, which reviews the natural disaster perils that occurred worldwide during August, notes that Hurricane Isaac was “the first land falling...
Commentary: World Economy Entering Into Financial Hurricane Season
Sep 7 2012 // The North Atlantic hurricane season runs from mid-August to October, with a strong peak in storm activity around the middle of September. A less familiar but even more destructive pattern of disturbances is the financial...
Hurricane Leslie Moving Slowly Towards Bermuda; Michael is 1st Cat 3 Storm
Sep 6 2012 // Leslie has become a category one hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph, 120 km/h. A gradual strengthening is forecast over the next 48 hours. The latest bulletin, posted at 5:00 a.m....
Strong Earthquake Strikes Western Costa Rica: AIR Analysis
Sep 6 2012 // According to catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide, on September 5 at 8:42 AM local time, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck a sparsely populated region of western Costa Rica approximately 150 km [94 miles] west of San...
Aon Benfield Report Highlights Growth of Insurance-linked Securities
Sep 6 2012 // Catastrophe bond issuance for the last 12 months – June 2011 to June 2012 – rose to $6.43 billion – an increase of more than $2 billion over the same period in 2011, according to a report issued by Aon Benfield...
How Tornado Has Changed a Kentucky Town
Sep 6 2012 // Eddie and Sherri Granger’s new life running an antique store in West Liberty, Ky., collapsed in a heap of debris when a tornado demolished their nearly century-old building while tearing through this eastern Kentucky...
Thousands File Flood Insurance Claims After Isaac
Sep 5 2012 // Thousands of flood insurance claims are being filed in the wake of Hurricane Isaac, a slow-moving storm that hammered several parishes in southern Louisiana with prolonged, drenching rains and tropical-storm force winds,...
Katrina’s Lessons in Mississippi May Have Saved Lives in Hurricane Isaac
Sep 5 2012 // For all the lives it took when it plowed across the Gulf Coast in 2005, Hurricane Katrina may have saved some during Isaac. Officials took lessons from Katrina and applied them to their emergency plans. Storm shelters that...
Another Disaster Brings Candidates to Gulf Coast
Sep 4 2012 // Mitt Romney wasted no time after accepting the GOP presidential nomination in heading to Louisiana to see the damage from Hurricane Isaac, changing his schedule on the fly to get there the very next day. President Barack...
A Year After Texas Wildfires, Recovery Continues
Sep 4 2012 // One year after wildfires raced through Bastrop and impacted 64 other Texas counties, recovery continues with more than $63 million in disaster assistance provided to date, state and federal emergency management officials...
Insurers Processing Estimated $1.2 Billion in Hurricane Isaac Claims
Sep 3 2012 // Insurance claims from Hurricane Isaac have starting coming in, with one estimate saying losses to insurers could total $1.2 billion. AIR Worldwide, which models losses for insurers, said its best estimate of losses was...
Thousands Evacuated as Isaac Floods Outside New Orleans
Aug 31 2012 // Isaac continued to pour unrelenting rain on Aug. 30, flooding areas north and south of New Orleans even as the city’s fortified defenses held and forcing officials to launch speedy evacuation and rescue efforts in...
U.S. Insured Losses from Hurricane Isaac Could Reach $2B: AIR
Aug 31 2012 // Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide estimates that insured losses from Hurricane Isaac to onshore properties in the U.S. will be between $700 million and $2 billion. AIR estimates include wind and storm surge damage to...
