Texas hail insured losses reach $1.1 billion from recent events

Insurance and perhaps reinsurance industry losses from recent hail storm damage in Texas, suffered during outbreaks of severe convective weather in the last two weeks, has reached at least $1.1 billion, according to the Insurance Council.

Losses started to mount in March almost a fortnight ago, when hail storms caused by severe thunderstorms in the Dallas and Fort Worth area of Texas on Thursday 17th March 2016 resulted in more than $600 million of insurance claims.

Now, a second hail storm event, which struck the Texas region around and Denton and Collin County on the 24th March, including the city of Plano, is estimated to have resulted in at least $500m of insurance industry losses, bringing the toll in two weeks to at least $1.1 billion.

Insurance Council of Texas Mark Hanna said that both storms seemed of similar severity, although the earlier Dallas and Fort Worth storm featured larger hail and so was expected to remain the higher insurance loss.

The Plano and Collin County storm on the 24th is estimated to have damaged more than 50,000 cars and 25,000 homes.

Hanna also told the media that the recent storms were earlier than is typically seen in Texas, with severe storms more frequent through April to June. He called it an “auspicious start” to the season.

Texas is forecast to experience more severe storms today (Wednesday 30th March) raising the possibility of further insurance or reinsurance losses. On their own these events will not worry reinsurers, or indeed ILS funds that allocate capital to collateralised reinsurance covering the region.

But on an aggregated basis, if the season continues in this manner, losses could be attritional for the ILS fund market through potential exposure to collateralised reinsurance contracts.

Also read: Another billion dollar week of U.S. severe weather losses: Aon.

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