Latest Catastrophe Headlines
All the headlines from our Catastrophe Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Insurers, Government Grapple with Costs of Growth in Wildland-Urban Interface
Aug 15 2013 // The summer of 2013 has been another severe fire season for the United States, a trend that has insurance companies bracing for a new normal: higher rates of property damage as Americans move to wildfire-prone areas in ever...
Tornado Damage Exceeds $30M in Wisconsin
Aug 14 2013 // Officials in the Fox Valley say damage from recent tornadoes exceeds $30 million. The National Weather Service tells WLUK-TV that six tornadoes have been confirmed during the storms. It had previously confirmed five...
Otter Declares Disaster for Idaho Wildfire Areas
Aug 14 2013 // Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter has issued a disaster declaration for areas on southern Idaho ravaged in recent weeks by wildfires. The declaration announced Monday specifically targets Elmore County, where two large,...
Atlantic Hurricane Season to Enter Most Active Phase Next Week
Aug 14 2013 // The Atlantic hurricane season is about to enter its most active phase as conditions for the powerful storms improve across the basin. Wind shear that can tear budding storms apart has been decreasing, said Dan Kottlowski,...
Public Meeting on Texas Windstorm Insurance Issues Announced
Aug 13 2013 // The Texas Department of Insurance announced that a public meeting of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association expert panel will be held Aug. 22 from 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm in Austin. The purpose of the meeting is to...
Tropical Cyclone Utor Slams Philippines, Heads towards China: AIR Worldwide
Aug 13 2013 // Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide reports that “Typhoon Utor slammed into the northern Philippine island of Luzon on Monday, August 12, at around 3:00 pm local time (7:00 UTC) with 10-minute sustained winds of...
California Faces Longer, Tough Wildfire Season
Aug 12 2013 // California truly is the Golden State this summer – golden brown – and that has fire officials worried heading into the peak of the wildfire season. It’s still weeks before the fire-fanning Santa Ana winds usually...
Cat Bonds, Sidecars Keeping Reinsurance Rates Low Says Guy Carpenter
Aug 12 2013 // Reinsurance market rates continued to be driven by an influx of capital from third-party investors at the July 1 renewals, in spite of catastrophe losses reaching approximately $20 billion during the first six months of...
Southern California Wildfire Pushes East, Forces Evacuations
Aug 9 2013 // A California wildfire that doubled in size overnight torched 15 buildings east of Los Angeles, injured at least five people and forced the evacuation of 500 homes in about half a dozen small communities, authorities said...
NOAA Updates Hurricane Forecast
Aug 9 2013 // The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Thursday slightly lowered its forecast for the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season but said it still expected “above normal” storm activity this...
Collected Forecasts for 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season
Aug 9 2013 // The U.S. government climate agency on Thursday slightly lowered its forecast for the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, but said it still expected “above normal” storm activity this year. The National Oceanic and...
Liberty Mutual Q2 Net Income More Than Triples to $448M
Aug 8 2013 // Liberty Mutual Holding Co. Inc. posted $448 million net income for its 2013 second quarter, a 222 percent jump from $139 million net income posted during the same quarter last year. The company benefited from lower...
Aon Benfield’s July Cat Report Confirms Canada’s 2nd Billion Dollar Loss
Aug 8 2013 // According to the latest Global Catastrophe Recap report from Impact Forecasting, the catastrophe model development center of excellence at Aon Benfield, the “strong thunderstorms” that “brought record...
Oklahoma Insurance Claims from May Tornadoes Top $1 Billion
Aug 8 2013 // Insurance payments from the May tornado outbreak across central Oklahoma have now topped $1 billion, state insurance regulators report. “These numbers are staggering,” said Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner John...
Oklahoma Officials Place May 20 Tornado Toll at 25
Aug 7 2013 // The Oklahoma Medical Examiner has increased the toll from the May 20 tornado at Moore after the death of a 90-year-old woman critically injured in the storm. Spokeswoman Amy Elliott said that the death of Kathryn Begay...
S.C. Researchers Unveil New Hurricane Model; Program to Offer Landfall Probability
Aug 7 2013 // As hurricane season approaches its peak, researchers at South Carolina’s Coastal Carolina University unveiled a new hurricane model program named after a massive Category 4 storm that smashed into South Carolina a...
Massachusetts Sees Spike in Hurricane Sandy Title Scams
Aug 5 2013 // The Registry of Motor Vehicles is warning consumers in western Massachusetts to watch out for scammers who sell cars with reconstructed titles from Oregon that mask vehicles damaged during Hurricane Sandy. The RMV says...
Insurer Loss Ratios High in Oklahoma after Years of Extreme Storms
Aug 5 2013 // The May storms in Oklahoma that produced two EF-5 tornadoes, destroyed thousands of houses, resulted in 46 deaths and sent damage estimates above the $5 billion mark, were extreme examples of a years-long pattern of storms...
How to Manage the Winds of Change for High Net Worth Clients
Aug 5 2013 // Protecting Personal Property in a New Era of Catastrophes As insurance professionals, we’re in the business of anticipating and responding to severe weather. However, heightened activity in recent years points to...
North Carolina Residual Market Issues $500 Million in Cat Bonds
Aug 5 2013 // North Carolina’s two residual homeowners insurance markets have jointly issued $500 million in pre-event catastrophe bonds to ensure they have enough money on hand to quickly pay claims following hurricanes and other...
