PCS increases insured industry loss estimate for hurricane Irene

Property Claims Services (PCS), the agency who provide estimates of insured industry losses for catastrophe events in the U.S., have increased their estimate for hurricane Irene from $3.65 billion to $4.3 billion. This still puts insured losses from hurricane Irene right in the range of the original estimates made after the event.

PCS say that the storm resulted in over 855,000 insurance claims, averaging at just over $5,000 each. The worst hit states were New Jersey and North Carolina which both saw just over $900m of insured losses.

We don’t expect this increase in industry losses from Irene to impact any exposed catastrophe bonds as despite some f them using industry loss triggers utilising PCS data they are all state weighted and we don’t believe any of the state specific loss estimates will reach a high enough level to cause any impacts to cat bonds. You can see which cat bonds were exposed to hurricane Irene here.

A further update to the PCS estimate will be published during Q1 of 2012.