Allstate expect $1.4 billion in losses from April tornadoes

Catastrophe’s caused by the recent spell of severe thunderstorm convective weather which resulted in record breaking formation of tornadoes across much of the U.S. midwest and south are likely to cost insurer Allstate as much as $1.4 billion in losses. That’s a lot for one company from an event which has only been estimated to cause up to $5.5 billion in industry insured losses.

The spell of tornadoes broke all records for the amount of twisters recorded so early in the year leaving many to suggest that the rest of the season could be highly active for convective weather. Allstate say that 13 events in the U.S. and Canada have created losses for them, with the events being tornadoes in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Virginia that occurred in the last week of April.

Allstate estimate catastrophe losses of around $1.4 billion for the month of April. Of course that will likely be covered under a reinsurance agreement (we’d expect) and it either shows that Allstate are the dominant insurer in these regions or that the industry loss estimates are likely to rise (as it’s such a high percentage of the industry loss estimates). Other insurers with exposure in the affected areas are also reporting heavy losses, with Liberty Mutual estimating losses of between $350m and $450m and Nationwide saying its operating income would be ‘challenged’.

As we wrote the other day, American Family Mutual Insurance’s catastrophe bond Mariah Re Ltd. has been accumulating qualifying losses due to this spell of weather and are awaiting reports from PCS on some of the events later in April.