Latest Catastrophe Headlines
All the headlines from our Catastrophe Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Tropical Storm Karen Downgraded Before Landfall
Oct 6 2013 // Tropical Storm Karen was downgraded to a depression and storm warnings were discontinued Saturday night as the weather system churned in the Gulf of Mexico before heading toward landfall in northern Florida. Karen’s...
Lloyd’s CEO Richard Ward Reflects on ‘Nearly 8’ Eventful Years
Oct 6 2013 // Lloyd’s CEO Richard Ward is stepping down from the post at the end of the year. Despite the catastrophes of 2005 and 2011, the two costliest years in the industry’s history, as well as the financial crisis, he...
Gulf Coast Braces for Flooding from Tropical Storm Karen
Oct 3 2013 // Tropical Storm Karen may bring more than 7 inches (18 centimeters) of rain, isolated tornadoes and power outages to the U.S. Gulf Coast, where it is expected to go ashore over the weekend, forecasters said. Karen, with top...
Bill Would Take the Florida Cat Fund in the Wrong Direction
Oct 3 2013 // Florida state Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate, has filed Senate Bill 228 to maintain the current statutory requirement that the state-run Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, better known as the Cat Fund, sell $17 billion in...
Underwriting, Investment Gains Boosted P/C Insurers’ Bottom Line in First Half 2013
Oct 3 2013 // Private U.S. property/casualty insurers’ net income after taxes rose to $24.5 billion in first-half 2013 from $17.2 billion in first-half of last year. Insurers’ overall profitability as measured by their...
Tropical Storm Karen Forms in Gulf; Hurricane Watch in Effect
Oct 3 2013 // Tropical storm Karen, the 11th named storm of the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, has formed over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in its latest bulletin. Karen is packing maximum...
New Law: New York Considers First Tornado Warning System
Oct 2 2013 // New York is looking into creating its first statewide early warning system for tornadoes. A bill signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo directs a review into the feasibility of installing a system. The system could involve...
Quiet Atlantic Storm Season Humbles Forecasters
Sep 25 2013 // The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season is humbling forecasters by shaping up as the first in almost two decades without a major storm, confounding predictions that it would be more active than normal. It’s been two weeks...
Canada Regulator Urges Re/Insurers to Use Cat Bonds after Flood Disaster
Sep 25 2013 // Canada’s banking regulator is urging insurers to sell catastrophe bonds for the first time to cut the risk of natural disasters, such as the record floods that inundated swathes of downtown Calgary in June. Climate...
Swarm Of Earthquakes Shake Yellowstone
Sep 24 2013 // Until recently, Bob Smith had never witnessed two simultaneous earthquake swarms in his 53 years of monitoring seismic activity in and around the Yellowstone Caldera. Now, Smith, a University of Utah geophysics professor,...
Typhoon Usagi Weakens before Hitting China Coast: AIR Worldwide
Sep 23 2013 // According to catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide, Severe Typhoon Usagi, the 19th named storm to form in the Northwest Pacific this year, “made landfall near the city of Shanwei (150 kilometers [94 miles]...
E&O Insights: Mother Nature’s Effect on E&O Claims
Sep 23 2013 // It seems that practically every time you turn on the news, a part of the United States is being threatened by a significant weather-related event. It’s sometimes anyone’s guess when and where the next...
Scientists Defining Cascadia Subduction Zone in Pacific Northwest
Sep 23 2013 // It was early September and scientists were just back from a month-long research cruise in the Pacific Ocean off Washington, where they were trying to find the stickiest point on a section of the Cascadia Subduction Zone,...
Cooley Masters Quake Insurance
Sep 23 2013 // Editor’s note: This is part of a series on insurance professionals in politics. This is a national series. Some of the articles focused on the Western U.S. region can be read in the pages of this issue of Insurance...
Mass. Diocese Agrees to $60M Settlement Over Tornado Damages
Sep 23 2013 // The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield has agreed to a $60 million settlement with its insurer for damage done to a parochial high school and other church property by a tornado two years ago. The resolution with insurer...
A Forecast-Busting Atlantic Hurricane Season
Sep 23 2013 // The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, which forecasters had predicted would be more active than normal, has turned out to be something of a dud so far as an unusual calm has been hanging over the tropics. As the season...
Magnitude 5.8 Earthquake Hits Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture-Kyodo
Sep 20 2013 // An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.8 struck Fukushima Prefecture in Japan early Friday morning, Kyodo reported, quoting the Japan Meteorological Agency. No tsunami warning has been issued, the news agency...
Typhoon Usagi Heads Toward Taiwan and China: AIR Worldwide
Sep 20 2013 // AIR Worldwide’s latest report on Typhoon Usagi describes a “Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds of 204 km/h [127.5 mph].” It is “expected to strengthen over the coming days and could...
Brokers Urge Renewal of ‘Essential’ Federal Terrorism Insurance
Sep 19 2013 // The federal Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) is a “model” for public-private cooperation and should be renewed, insurance broker Marsh told lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Peter J. Beshar, executive vice...
Mexico Storms Leave 80 Dead as New Hurricane Heads for Coast
Sep 19 2013 // Hurricane Manuel formed off of Mexico’s Pacific coast, promising to bring new flooding as the nation struggles to clean up after two storms that killed at least 80 people and trapped thousands of tourists in the...
