Latest Natural Disasters Headlines
All the headlines from our Natural Disasters Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Earthquake Confirmed in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula
Nov 21 2018 // A magnitude 4.1 earthquake has shaken an area beneath Olympic National Park south of Port Angeles, the U.S. Geological Survey has confirmed. The USGS reported the earthquake hit just after 3 a.m. Monday. There were no...
A.M. Best Assesses Wildfires’ Effect on Home Insurance Market, Insurers’ PG&E Exposure
Nov 20 2018 // Roughly one-in-10 insurers have exposures to PG&E bonds, which could potentially used to payout on losses from the California wildfires, according to ratings agency A.M. Best. It was recently determined that a second...
PG&E’s $1.4B in Wildfire Insurance May Not Be Enough, But Was ‘Regular Amount’
Nov 20 2018 // PG&E Corp.’s $1.4 billion in wildfire insurance may not be enough to cover all its potential liabilities from the deadliest blaze in California history. But the company wasn’t necessarily skimping on...
Florida Picks Up the Pieces from Powerful Hurricane Michael
Nov 20 2018 // This photo shows debris and destruction in Mexico Beach, Fla., Friday, Oct. 12, 2018, after Hurricane Michael went through the area on Oct. 10. Mexico Beach, the ground-zero town, was nearly obliterated by the hurricane,....
3 Louisiana Parishes Designated USDA Natural Disaster Areas
Nov 19 2018 // The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has designated three Louisiana parishes as contiguous disaster areas as the result of excessive rain and flooding that occurred April 1 to June 30, 2018, according to Agriculture...
Latest Estimates of Insured Losses from California Wildfires at $9B to $13B
Nov 19 2018 // Insured losses from the Camp and Woolsey wildfires in California will be between $9 billion and $13 billion, according to the latest estimates from catastrophe modeler RMS. RMS’ latest estimates released on Monday...
PG&E Says There Was Another Outage on Morning of California Wildfire
Nov 19 2018 // California utility PG&E Corp , facing investor concerns over its possible role in the deadly Camp Fire in Northern California, has reported another power-line outage that it experienced on the morning of Nov. 8 when...
28 Streamflow Records Broken in Carolinas by Hurricane Florence Floods
Nov 19 2018 // A federal report shows Hurricane Florence broke records in a key flooding measure at more than two-dozen stream gauges in the Carolinas. The U.S. Geological Survey released a report Nov. 13 on streamflow, which measures...
S&P Says Insurers and Reinsurers Can Absorb Losses from California Wildfires
Nov 16 2018 // S&P Global Ratings expects both the primary insurers and reinsurers to be able to absorb losses from the California wildfires, limiting them to an earnings event. However, the mounting bills from more frequents large...
Insurance Industry Kept Promises to Hurricane Victims; Now Tested by Wildfires
Nov 16 2018 // Between the devastating wildfires in California and the destructive forces of Hurricanes Florence and Michael on the East Coast earlier this fall, the property/casualty insurance market has been put to the test this...
Insurance Agent at Heart of Heartbreaking California Wildfire
Nov 14 2018 // Derek Ross has his hands full with the Woolsey Fire in Southern California for three reasons. He’s an insurance agent with numerous clients affected, he’s the president of the board of a school district...
PG&E’s Camp Wildfire Liabilities Could Exceed Renewed Insurance
Nov 14 2018 // Shares of utility PG&E Corp. fell 18 percent on Wednesday after the company warned of liquidity concerns if its equipment was found responsible for starting the Camp wildfire currently raging in California. The company...
Solutions to Wildfires in Time of Climate Change Are Costly, Unpopular
Nov 14 2018 // California’s deadly wildfires have a straightforward solution, experts say: stop building homes in places that are likely to burn — and make homes that already exist in those areas a whole lot tougher. That...
Weather Service Confirms Several Tornadoes Hit Northeast Mississippi
Nov 14 2018 // The National Weather Service has confirmed two tornadoes hit northeast Mississippi last week. A preliminary survey Nov. 6 showed a twister with top winds of 115 mph (185 kph) struck in Pontotoc County. The tornado, rated...
How Insurance Industry Might React to ‘New Normal’ of California’s Historic Wildfires
Nov 13 2018 // The “new normal” for California has yielded another year of record wildfires and billions of dollars in insured losses. Homeowners insurance rates inch up in high risk areas, and carriers get more cautious...
Will California See More Laws and Regulations in Wake of Wildfires?
Nov 13 2018 // Powered by InsuranceJournal.tv Last year’s California wildfires destroyed thousands of homes and cost billions of dollars, but they also created numerous new laws and regulations in their wake as Legislators and...
California Utilities Face Potential of Billion Dollar Wildfires Year After Year
Nov 13 2018 // California utilities are facing the very real possibility that billion-dollar blazes could become an annual occurrence, and they don’t know how to pay for them. Shares of the state’s two largest utilities...
Insurers’ Firefighting Teams Move to Limit Damage from California Wildfires
Nov 13 2018 // California’s raging wildfires are so bad that American International Group Inc. and Chubb Ltd. are deploying teams of specialists and former firefighters to spray retardants on homes. The season may soon rank among...
California Wildfire Insured Losses at Billions of Dollars and Climbing
Nov 12 2018 // An analysis by catastrophe modeler RMS shows 15 wildfires are burning more than 280,000 acres in California have collectively destroyed nearly 7,000 homes and businesses and killed 31 people. Roughly 300,000 have been...
Deaths, Damages Continue to Rise in California’s Most Destructive Wildfires
Nov 12 2018 // The most destructive wildfires in California’s history have killed at least 31 people and forced tens of thousands more to evacuate as firefighters struggle to gain control amid swirling winds. The so-called Camp...
