Commercial insurance and reinsurance usually has very constrained flood coverage, leaving that to the government's National Flood Insurance Program
From Artemis, September 7:
RMS says hurricane Ida loss $25bn to $35bn, on Gulf region impacts only
Catastrophe risk modeller RMS has provided the clearest view of the escalation in industry loss estimates for recent hurricane Ida, pegging the total onshore and offshore losses for the Gulf region at between $25 billion and $35 billion.
This doesn’t include any of the damages experienced further north from hurricane Ida’s track and remnant flooding, suggesting there is a relatively significant addition to make to the total.
RMS’ estimate is a particularly wide range though, which perhaps reflects how challenging a loss event the hurricane is expected to present to the insurance and reinsurance industry.
RMS said late yesterday that onshore and offshore U.S. insured losses from hurricane Ida in the Gulf of Mexico are expected to be between $25 billion and $35 billion.
This is based on an insurance and reinsurance market loss of between $21 billion and $28 billion for wind and surge damages, $1 billion to $1.5 billion for inland flooding in the Gulf states only, $700 million to $1.5 billion for offshore energy damages, plus between $2.3 billion and $4 billion of losses to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) across the four impacted Gulf Coast states (Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi).
It’s the highest estimate so far from any catastrophe modeller and even the wind and storm surge damage estimate of up to $28 billion is above competitors such as AIR’s up to $25 billion, KCC’s around $18 billion and CoreLogic’s up to $21 billion.
RMS’ catastrophe loss estimate includes wind, storm surge, and inland flood losses across only the impacted Gulf states in the landfall region — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.
The company said it will put out an estimate for the wind and inland flooding impacts in Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast U.S. regions, once the full extent of damage is known....
....MUCH MORE
Previously:
August 30
Re/Insurance: Initial Modeling Suggests $15 - $25 Billion Industry Loss From Hurricane Ida
Which suggests, using our "What's on TV" model (backtested to yesterday) total damage in the $40 to $50 billion range.
August 31
"New Orleans power could be out for weeks; damage from Ida estimated at $80B"
Just yesterday the cat bond/ILS mavens at Artemis were posting industry estimates of the hit to the Re/Insurance business at $15 - $25 billion while we, using our proprietary "What's on T.V." damage model, were guesstimating total damage at $40 - 50 billion.
Today, based on the extent of the damage to the electrical grid, the 'business interruption' portion of the insurance cover looks to skyrocket. And if you recall, this was the part of policies that terrified the insurers early on in the covid mess and caused them to fight tooth-and-nail against their insureds....
