ISO: 'Unusual' CAT Loss Hit $12.8 Billion
NU Online News Service, Jan. 16, 11:42 a.m. EST?U.S. property-casualty insurers, after an uncommon season of weather catastrophes, paid out some $12.8 billion to homeowners and businesses for insured property losses in 2003. [@@]
It was the third-costliest year for CAT losses in the past 10 years, according to new estimates by Insurance Services Office's Property Claim Services. Overall, the damage levels were fairly unique according to a spokesman for the Jersey City, N.J.-based company.
ISO observed that its CAT-loss estimate for 2003 included 21 catastrophic events. The firm defines a catastrophe as an event within a particular territory that causes $25 million or more in insured property losses. Overall, policyholders filed more than 2.6 million personal and commercial property and auto claims for the year, ISO said.
"It was an unusual year–in some years you have one single event that drives the bulk of the losses, but this year there wasn't one event that overshadowed all others," commented Christopher Guidette, spokesman at ISO.
Mr. Guidette observed that in 2003, there were a handful of major catastrophic events that together drove high CAT losses.
- The single-biggest CAT event last year consisted of multistate tornados and thunderstorms that occurred between May 2 and May 11. ??That involved 27 states and resulted in $3.2 billion in insured losses,?? Mr. Guidette said.
- The second-biggest catastrophic event in 2003 involved last November??s California wildfires, which cost $2.03 billion in insured losses. The wildfires covered five California counties–San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego, Los Angeles and Ventura–consuming some 745,190 acres.
- The third-biggest event was Hurricane Isabel in September 2003, whose final insured losses came in at around $1.7 billion. The hurricane impacted Delaware, North Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
- The next big CAT event was the April 2003 winter storm, which affected 10 states and resulted in $1.6 billion in insured losses.
These catastrophes were followed by other, smaller events with insured losses below $1 billion. One such event was the wind and thunderstorm during July 21 to July 23, which involved 14 states and caused insured losses of $815 million. And during January 2003, a major winter storm involving nearly 20 states resulted in some $500 million in insured CAT losses, according to ISO.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.