Insured Tornado Losses May Hit $290 Million

By Daniel Hays

NU Online News Service, Nov. 14, 12:29 p.m. EST?Insurers can expect a loss of up to $290 million from the deadly tornadoes that ripped through one-third of the nation last week, according to a Boston-based modeling group.

According to the Insurance Information Institute in New York, the estimate by AIR Worldwide would make the weather catastrophe one of the top-five costliest tornado events. It came as state authorities were still struggling to come up with damage assessments.

AIR is an independent subsidiary of the Insurance Services Office Inc. in Jersey City, N.J. At this point, ISO's Property Claim Services unit is more conservative in its estimate, with a loss figure of between $150 million and $200 million.

"These are very preliminary estimates based on very limited information given the extent of the damage," said Dave Dasgupta, a representative for ISO, explaining the PCS numbers.

"It's very, very preliminary," he stressed, adding that "in many cases adjusters have not been able to reach these areas." He noted that there are many homeowners who have yet to notify their insurers. "People aren't running to their agent while they are trying to get order in their lives," he said.

In Tennessee, which among the states suffered 17 of the 36 tornado fatalities, Cecil Whaley, director of natural hazards for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, said that damage assessment teams were still at work in a 425-mile expanse of territory.

The work is difficult, he said, because the affected range "is a really rural area," and in some places state transportation department and forestry employees are still working to make roads passable. He said that over 1,000 homes and 40-to-50 businesses were damaged, and "we're certainly in the multimillion-dollar damage phase."

Among the major property insurers, only Nationwide was providing damage figures. A Nationwide representative, Holly Diefenbaugh, said the company is projecting a $19 million loss from all states. Of that total, $1.3 million comes from commercial claims. She said the approximate number of claims is a little over 2,900 for auto and homeowners.

A State Farm representative, Ana Compane-Romero, said that the company had registered 4,300 homeowners claims and 4,574 auto claims from Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee.

Allstate said it could not provide data and it was against policy to discuss its losses.

Gerry Lemcke, deputy head of catastrophe perils at Swiss Re's Armonk, N.Y. office, said, "for the reinsurance industry, it does not look like a big event," adding that the "bulk of claims will be picked up by primary insurers." Mr. Lemcke said that the "tornado outbreak," which saw more than 70 tornadoes touch down, had affected "roughly a third of America" as it passed through 17 states.

He said the insurance industry had been lucky because the tornadoes had gone through what were basically rural areas. Mr. Lemcke noted that in the last and most costly tornado outbreak in 1999, when losses exceeded $1.5 billion, twisters hit "many dense high-dollar areas of Oklahoma City."

For a tornado to do costly damage it must hit a densely populated area, "otherwise it's a tiny thing and the chance of being hit is quite remote," Mr. Lemcke said, adding that even in the area of states known as Tornado Alley, "the chance of being hit is once in 2,000 years."

Mr. Lemcke noted that the damage from the latest tornado outbreak had occurred well past the normal season for such events--a result, he said, of El Ni?o weather conditions.

Special Reports /

Insured Tornado Losses May Hit $290 Million

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