Latest Catastrophe Headlines
All the headlines from our Catastrophe Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Survey Says Risk Managers Spent More on Disaster Preparedness, Catastrophe Management
Apr 27 2006 // Spending for loss control services increased or remained flat for a majority of organizations in the past year, and the greatest spending increases occurred in such areas as disaster preparedness and catastrophe...
Fla. Insurance Council Describes Pending Legislation
Apr 27 2006 // The Florida House Insurance Committee and the House Fiscal Council have approved CS/CS/HB 7225, and according to the Florida Insurance Council, the next stop is the full House. FIC released a side-by-side comparison of...
La. Credit Score Bill May Harm Consumers, AIA Says
Apr 27 2006 // The Louisiana House Insurance Committee has passed legislation (H.B. 318) regarding a ban on the use of credit scoring information from 2005, which will negatively affect consumers and the overall insurance market in...
Actuaries to White House: Federal Insurance Backstop Needed
Apr 27 2006 // The American Academy of Actuaries, in response to questions posed by the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, has submitted its terrorism risk insurance analysis, which concludes that a national framework...
U.S. Commercial Brokers Reiterate Call for Terrorism Backstop
Apr 25 2006 // The commercial insurance marketplace cannot effectively price and underwrite terrorism coverage because there still is no effective modeling, so any long-term solution to the terrorism risk coverage must involve the...
Zurich’s CEO Comments on Results, Future Plans at Annual Meeting
Apr 24 2006 // Zurich Financial Services’ Annual General Meeting, held April 20, evinced the considerable turn around in its fortunes under the direction of CEO James J. Schiro, who took over the faltering giant in May 2002. In his...
Willis’ Sees ‘Tumultuous Times’ for Natural Catastrophe Market
Apr 21 2006 // A bulletin from global broker Willis Group Holdings in the April 2006 online edition of “Marketplace Realities and Risk Management Solutions” describes events in the natural catastrophe (Nat Cat) segment of the...
Insurers Expected to Pay $1.38B for Q1 Cat Losses
Apr 20 2006 // U.S. property/casualty insurers are expected to pay an estimated $1.38 billion to homeowners and businesses in insured property losses from seven catastrophe events in first-quarter 2006, according to preliminary analysis...
RMS Estimates Repeat of 1906 San Francisco Quake Would Cause $50 Billion to $80 Billion in Insured Losses
Apr 19 2006 // Based on 2006 population and property exposures in the San Francisco Bay area, Risk Management Solutions, Newark, Calif., estimates there would be at least $260 billion in damages to residential and commercial exposures if...
Engineers Working, Stretching, Bending Toward Earthquake-Proof Building
Apr 19 2006 // Sometime in the not-so-distant future, newly constructed buildings will be able to withstand earthquakes of the magnitude that destroyed San Francisco one century ago, scientists say. Working with super-strong materials...
Commonwealth Insurance Signs with Eqecat for Catastrophe Management
Apr 18 2006 // EQECAT Inc., an extreme-risk modeling company, said that Commonwealth Insurance Co., a Canadian-based insurance provider, has signed a licensing agreement to use EQECAT’s WORLDCATenterprise platform and XML interface...
Study Calculates Impact of 1906 Bay Area Quake Today
Apr 18 2006 // If an earthquake like the one that devastated San Francisco, Calif., in 1906 struck today, the toll would be staggering: tens of thousands of buildings damaged and hundreds of people dead, according to a new study. The...
Sound Risk Management, Strong Investment Results Prove Positive for P/C Industry
Apr 18 2006 // U.S. property/casualty insurers managed to increase earnings and add to their capital base in 2005 despite record catastrophe losses, according to ISO and the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI). Sound...
Fireman’s Fund Sponsors Wildfire Seminar on San Francisco Earthquake Centennial
Apr 18 2006 // As the nation commemorates the one hundredth anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, one of the surviving companies from that disaster — Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co., will be hosting a...
Private Firms Seize Profit Opportunities in Emergency Services
Apr 17 2006 // If government can’t do it, business will. Once the domain of government and charitable relief groups, hurricane response and preparedness are a booming billion-dollar business — from the self-heating food packets...
Bulletins Issued, Hotline Accepting Calls About Tenn. Tornados
Apr 17 2006 // Tennessee Commerce and Insurance Commissioner Paula A. Flowers has announced that her department is ready to assist consumers and insurance companies as they work to rebuild the communities affected by last week’s...
Critics allege wind modelers following politics over science
Apr 17 2006 // Risk Management Solutions has defended its hurricane risk models in the face of consumer groups’ criticisms that the models are more political than they are scientific and that they are designed to justify insurance...
Editor’s Note: Close to home: 1906 revisited
Apr 17 2006 // April 18 marks the 100th anniversary of the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906, a catastrophe that affected thousands of lives, caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and generated aftershocks in insurance...
Deadly storms hit Midwest again in new round of spring tornadoes
Apr 17 2006 // The new round of tornadoes hit the Midwest less than one month after a similar grouping of twisters, high winds and damage hit a five-state area on March 12. News Currents Another round of deadly storms hit the Midwest...
Closer Look: Olympics Coverage
Apr 17 2006 // While Italians sadly said farewell to the Torino 2006 XX Olympic Winter Games, held Feb. 10-26, insurers are happy the event came and went without a hitch. For the first time, the International Olympic Committee purchased...
