IIAT found that the price tag for the mold crisis is growing, as indicated in the department's latest available monthly report on water-related losses paid under homeowners policies. The figure reached $138 million in December 2001, the IIAT said.

The department's report, which contains raw figures, also showed that, for the year 2001, paid losses for water-related claims--excluding freeze and foundation slab claims--totaled $1 billion, twice as much as the 2000 total and three times the 1999 total, the IIAT said.

The December claims payments were 16 percent higher than the previous month, which had been the previous record-holder, the IIAT stated.

The average claim cost also hit a new high in December at $8,900. This was 14 percent more than the previous high in November and triple the 1999 monthly average of $2,800, according to the IIAT.

Additionally, the December claims payments were almost 50 percent of the amount of homeowners premium written in that month. In contrast, in 1999 the ratio of water-related losses to premiums written was only 12 percent, the IIAT pointed out.

According to the group, "the only good news" from the TDI figures is that the number of paid water-related claims--excluding slab claims and freezing water claims--apparently peaked in July 2001.

The "bad news," said the IIAT, was that those claims peaked at levels that were one-and-one-half times the level of two years ago.

The IIAT said that, propelled by mold claims, the water-related claims amount paid in December was triple the paid losses for just one year earlier in December 2000 and five times larger than the paid losses in December 1999.

The claims volume for water-related losses peaked in July 2001 at 18,300 claims paid, which was 46 percent higher than the previous high of 12,500 which occurred in June 2001, and 78 percent higher than the claims volume for one year earlier in July 2000.

The IIAT also said that these losses' average claim cost of $8,900 in December 2001 was double the average paid in January 2001 and more than double the average paid in December 2000.

"Unfortunately for insurers, the average cost of the remaining types of homeowners insurance claims also began rising suddenly in 2000," the IIAT added.

While those costs did not rise as fast as water-related claims, the IIAT noted, they did rise at a rate of 9 percent in 2000 and another 11 percent in 2001, compared with an average of about 5 percent a year from 1990 through 1999.

"The combination of these trends, and the trends in water-related claims, has been devastating to companies' bottom line results," the IIAT reported. Paid losses that averaged 67 percent of written premium income during 1990-99 jumped to 82 percent of premium in 2000 and 91 percent of premium in 2001, the group stated.