Florida insurance commissioner Mike Yaworsky has underlined the stability of the state’s property insurance market, pointing to rating upgrades for three Florida special tax bonds.
Florida
Aon has marked the end of an 18-month certification process with the launch of its Florida Flood v3.0 model at a time of great opportunity in the US flood insurance space. Sustainable Insurer talks to Dan Rees, director of US flood model development at Aon, to find out the motivations behind the updated model.
Property Claim Services (PCS) has issued an updated estimate of $14.7bn for insured losses from Hurricane Milton, almost three times its initial estimate of $5bn, The Insurer understands.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has said that more than 72,000 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) policyholders have filed claims in Florida from hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton.
Verisk’s Extreme Event Solutions unit has become the latest modelling firm to provide a wide-ranging estimate for Hurricane Milton amid continued uncertainty over the ultimate quantum of insured losses from the event.
Karen Clark & Company (KCC) has estimated that privately insured losses from Hurricane Milton will be close to $36bn in the US as a result of wind, storm surge and inland flooding.
Hurricane Milton is not likely to affect credit for rated P&C insurers and global reinsurers, Fitch Ratings has said, adding that it does not expect most Florida property insurance specialists’ reinsurance programs to be exhausted.
Hurricane Milton’s rapid intensification on Monday to a Category 5 storm with Tampa Bay in its sights was met with a predictable sell-off of Florida carrier stocks as well as talk of a sudden shift in dynamics in the property cat reinsurance market ahead of 2025 renewals.
Hurricane Helene will likely become one of the 10 largest losses on record for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) due to its expected impacts in the Tampa Bay region, with wind losses likely retained by primary insurers after the storm’s track took it east of Tallahassee and Atlanta, according to reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter.
Hurricane Helene has now weakened to a tropical storm as it passes northward through Georgia, having made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 storm.
Early industry projections continue to point towards a likely single-digit billion dollar insured loss from Hurricane Helene ahead of the storm’s expected landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region later today.
Florida carrier Heritage Insurance Holdings has estimated $48mn of net catastrophe losses stemming from Hurricanes Debby and Helene for the third quarter and $57mn from Hurricane Milton for the fourth quarter.
Stonybrook Capital has estimated total insured losses from Hurricane Milton at between $30bn and $50bn, with the upper end of the range ranking the event among the dozen most severe storms in recent history.
Florida carrier HCI Group has estimated $600mn to $750mn of losses attributable to Hurricanes Debby, Helene, and Milton, with $60mn net expenses expected for the first two storms in Q3 and a net expense of $125mn for Milton in Q4.
Stonybrook Capital has estimated insured losses from Hurricane Milton at between $30bn and $50bn, warning the full extent of industry impacts will be slow to emerge.
