Latest Catastrophe Headlines
All the headlines from our Catastrophe Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Rating Hurricane Risk in Florida: How Using Geocoding Can Lead to More Accurate Pricing
Oct 8 2012 // Small companies often believe that they do not have enough homeowners data to build custom rating territories based on different perils, and therefore simply adopt the territories of a competitor. But because catastrophe...
Homeowners Insurance Claims Cost Rising Rapidly: Study
Oct 8 2012 // The cost of homeowners insurance claims has been rising rapidly because of the combined effects of rising claim severity and increases in claim frequency, according to an insurance industry report. An Insurance Research...
Report Points to Insurance Industry’s Vulnerability to Climate Change
Oct 8 2012 // A report out late last month urges the insurance industry to act to protect itself and the community against the increasing frequency of extreme weather due to climate change. In short, the report, its authors and those...
Reinsurers, Capital Markets: Competitors or Complements?
Oct 8 2012 // Investments from the capital markets in various forms now provide around 14 percent of the total capital dedicated to providing reinsurance – approximately $35 billion [$17 billion in cat bonds] out of $250 billion. The...
Katrina Victims Take on Hurricane Tour Operators
Oct 5 2012 // Some New Orleans residents and city officials are pushing back against tour operators who bus out-of-towners into the city’s Lower 9th Ward, where Hurricane Katrina unleashed a wall of water that pushed homes off...
11 Homes Destroyed in NW Minnesota Wildfire
Oct 5 2012 // State officials now say 11 homes and 24 other structures were destroyed by the wildfire that threatened the northwestern Minnesota city town of Karlstad. Jean Goad, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota Interagency Fire Center,...
Aon Benfield’s Monthly Cat Recap Focuses on $7.5 Billion Asian Flood Losses
Oct 5 2012 // Asian flood losses during the third quarter of 2012 aggregated more than $7.5 billion in economic losses, of which China was the worst hit by two separate flood events that affected several provinces. “The most...
P/C Insurers’ Profits Jump in First Half as Catastrophe Losses Drop
Oct 4 2012 // U.S. property/casualty insurers’ net income after taxes jumped to $16.4 billion in first-half 2012 from $4.8 billion in first-half 2011, with insurers’ overall profitability as measured by their annualized rate...
Karen Clark & Co. Introduces RiskInsight® Platform for Cat Risk Management
Oct 2 2012 // Boston-based Karen Clark & Company (KCC), independent experts in catastrophe risk, catastrophe models and catastrophe risk management, announced the release of the RiskInsight® open, global platform for catastrophe...
Feds Grant Hawaii $1.3M for Tsunami Sirens
Oct 2 2012 // The U.S. Commerce Department says it will grant Hawaii $1.3 million to upgrade its disaster preparedness system and build new tsunami warning sirens. U.S. Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank said in a Friday statement that...
Typhoon Jelawat Hits Okinawa; Moves on Tokyo: AIR Analysis
Oct 1 2012 // Typhoon Jelawat remains a powerful storm, even if its wind speed has decreased from around from 155 mph, 250km/h, it passed over Okinawa on Saturday with wind speeds over 90 mph, 144 km/h, causing extensive damage, and...
Tornado Hits Fair in Spain; Flood Deaths Reach 10
Oct 1 2012 // A tornado swept through a fairground in a Spanish town, knocking down a Ferris wheel and injuring 35 people, while the death toll from flooding in the same southern region of the country rose to 10, authorities said...
Louisiana Seeks to Use Hurricane Recovery Money for Pre-K Program
Sep 28 2012 // Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration wants to shift $20 million in hurricane recovery dollars for hurricanes Gustav and Ike to fill in budget gaps in the state’s free preschool program for at-risk students. The...
CDI Settles Enforcement Action Over Wildfire Claims
Sep 26 2012 // The California Department of Insurance has settled with the New Hampshire Insurance Company and its authorized agent York Risk Services Group Inc. for claims processing. The $285,000 settlement is a result of New Hampshire...
Homeowners Insurance Claims Cost Rising Rapidly: Study
Sep 26 2012 // The cost of homeowners insurance claims has been rising rapidly because of the combined effects of rising claim severity and increases in claim frequency, according to an insurance industry report. A new Insurance Research...
Super Typhoon Jelawat Roils the Pacific; No Present Threat to Land
Sep 26 2012 // Super typhoon Jelawat, or “sty 18w,” packing winds of 135 knots (155 mph – 250km/h) is currently located around 414 miles, 662 km, east-northeast of Manila, Philippines, according to the Pacific Joint Typhoon...
SoCal Fire is Reminder Worst Could be Ahead
Sep 25 2012 // A 4-square-mile wildfire in a rural San Diego County community has destroyed roughly a dozen homes and has left one man dead, a sober reminder the state has a large number of high risk homes and that Southern...
Monsoon Ends After Dismal Rain Year For N.M.
Sep 25 2012 // New Mexico’s summer monsoon season began with promise but has now ended with disappointing amounts of rainfall across much of the state. National Weather Service meteorologist Jason Frazier told the Santa Fe New...
2012 Hurricane Season Active at Halfway Point
Sep 24 2012 // At its midpoint, the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season has seen 14 tropical storms, with seven strengthening to hurricane status. According to catastrophe modeling firm Risk Management Solutions (RMS), the current hurricane...
Isaac Losses Won’t Strongly Impact P/C Industry in Louisiana
Sep 24 2012 // While insured losses in the United States from Hurricane Isaac likely will fall between $1 billion and $2 billion, according to some risk management experts, the storm’s impact will not severely impact the...
