Latest Natural Disasters Headlines
All the headlines from our Natural Disasters Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Pool Re Funds £10M Initiative to Help UK Businesses Improve Resilience to Terrorism
Mar 8 2019 // Pool Re, Britain’s terrorism reinsurer, is collaborating with UK government agencies to help businesses proactively protect against the risk of terrorism. The £10 million ($13.1 million) project is being funded by...
Improved Tornado Forecasting Doesn’t Prevent All Deaths
Mar 8 2019 // Sometimes in forecasting tornadoes, you can get everything technically right, and yet it all goes horribly wrong. Three days before the killer Alabama tornado struck, government severe-storm meteorologists cautioned that...
Alabama Tornado Recovery Efforts Begin As Threat of More Storms Looms
Mar 7 2019 // All those listed as missing have been found and searches ended with no additional bodies discovered among the shattered homes, splintered pines and broken lives devastated by a tornado in rural Alabama, leaving the death...
Despite Improved Tornado Forecasting, Deaths Continue
Mar 7 2019 // Sometimes in forecasting tornadoes, you can get everything technically right, and yet it all goes horribly wrong. Three days before the killer Alabama tornado struck, government severe-storm meteorologists cautioned that...
Wildfires Threaten Towns in Rural Southeast Australia
Mar 7 2019 // More homes were being threatened Tuesday [March 5] by wildfires that have burned dozens of homes and buildings in rural southeast Australia. Victoria state Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said emergency...
Arrowhead Launches Commercial Earthquake Program in California
Mar 7 2019 // Arrowhead General Insurance Agency has launched Quake Assist — a commercial earthquake program designed to help protect California business owners. Quake Assist is underwritten by Falls Lake National Insurance Co.,...
Southeast Storm System Spawned 18 Tornadoes, ‘Monster’ EF4 in Alabama
Mar 6 2019 // Picking through the twisted debris that had been her Alabama mobile home, Carol Dean found her wedding dress and a Father’s Day note to her husband reading, “Daddy, I love you to pieces.” Her husband was...
M4.5 Earthquake Confirmed Near Colorado-Utah Border
Mar 6 2019 // A 4.5 magnitude earthquake occurred near the Utah-Colorado border and was felt in the tourist town of Moab, Utah, officials confirmed. The University of Utah Seismograph Stations reported that the earthquake hit Monday...
Death Toll Climbs After Tornadoes Strike Southeast
Mar 5 2019 // This photo shows debris in Lee County, Ala., after what appeared to be a tornado struck in the area Sunday, March 3, 2019. Severe storms destroyed mobile homes, snapped trees and left a trail of destruction amid weather...
Opinion: California’s Wildfires Burn Our Climate Illusions
Mar 4 2019 // Joan Didion’s “Holy Water,” written in 1977, is a paean to the elaborate engineering that supplied her taps in Malibu and filled drinking glasses in Hollywood restaurants. At its heart is a warning: The...
Pool Re Completes £2.3B ($3.1B) Terrorism Retrocession Placement
Mar 1 2019 // Pool Re, Britain’s state-backed terrorism reinsurer, has today completed placement of its £2.3 billion (US$3.1 billion) retrocession program with more than 50 international reinsurers, led by Munich Re. The program,...
U.K.’s Pool Re Sells Terrorism Risk Catastrophe Bond
Feb 26 2019 // A U.K. reinsurer has sold the first terror catastrophe bond, giving investors the chance to lock in high yields in return for taking on terrorism risks. The 75 million-pound ($99 million) three-year bond will pay 5.9...
Tornado Kills 1 in Mississippi; Flooding Threatens Southeast
Feb 26 2019 // Weekend storms raked parts of the Southeast, leaving deaths and injuries in their wake as a tornado smashed into a commercial district in a small Mississippi city and drenching rains fed a rising flood threat. A woman was...
Florida Woman Arrested in $68K Hurricane Irma Scam
Feb 21 2019 // A Florida woman has been arrested for alleged unlicensed practice of public adjusting and grand theft related to Hurricane Irma, according to a statement from the Florida Department of Financial Services. Mary Bruce is...
AXA Reports 66% Drop in 2018 Net Profit on U.S. Unit’s IPO Costs, Natural Disasters
Feb 21 2019 // Net profits at AXA, Europe’s second biggest insurer, fell sharply as a result of charges related to its U.S. unit’s initial public offering (IPO) and a spate of natural disasters, although AXA hoped for higher...
Ironshore’s Shrubb Joins AXA XL’s Terrorism Insurance Team in U.S.
Feb 20 2019 // Morgan Shrubb has joined AXA XL Insurance as underwriting manager for War, Terrorism & Political Violence insurance. Shrubb joins AXA XL from Ironshore International where she served as a production specialist, charged...
SCOR’s Net Profit in 2018 Rises 13% Despite Spate of Q4 Natural Disasters
Feb 20 2019 // French reinsurer SCOR, which was the target of a thwarted acquisition by rival Covea last year, posted a surge in overall 2018 net profits despite making a loss in the fourth quarter caused by a spate of natural...
Thousands of Lawsuits Demanding PG&E Pay for Damages from Wildfires
Feb 18 2019 // Some 1,000 lawsuits have been filed since late 2017 demanding Pacific Gas & Electric Corporation pay for damages caused by wildfires. The lawsuits represent thousands of people, companies, cities and counties affected...
Number of Missouri Homes with Earthquake Coverage Declines
Feb 18 2019 // Between 2008 and 2017 rhere was a significant drop in the number of homes in Missouri insured for damage from earthquake, state insurance regulators report. That’s despite the fact that earthquakes present a...
Predicting Path of Spreading Wildfires
Feb 18 2019 // A University of Missouri researcher is teaming up with scholars in Kansas and Georgia to develop drone technology to monitor and potentially predict the spread of wildfires. The $1.2 million project will use drones to...
