tropical storm Helene 2024

Despite the fact reinsurance markets have typically retrenched higher-up after increases to attachments and raised prices through the recent hard market period, after hurricane Helene the dependence of specialist Florida property insurance carriers on their reinsurers remains a focus, according to AM Best.

This morning, we’re told that the significant flooding from rains associated with hurricane Helene throughout southeastern parts of the United States are bringing FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) reinsurance tower and catastrophe bonds into some focus, although there is uncertainty over how a predecessor rainfall event prior to the storm even making landfall could […]

Reinsurance broker Gallagher Re now expects that private insurance market losses from hurricane Helene will rise to the mid-to-high single-digit billion dollar level, higher than its initial pre-landfall forecast of $3 billion to $6 billion, according to Chief Science Officer and Meteorologist Steve Bowen.

The damage price tag from hurricane Helene’s impacts on the United States is expected to fall in a range from $20 billion to as high as $34 billion, with property damage a significant component at $15 billion to $26 billion, Moody’s Analytics has said.

Insured private market property losses from hurricane Helene’s winds and storm surge across the US states of Florida and Georgia are initially estimated in a range from $3 billion to $5 billion, according to CoreLogic.

Hurricane Helene made landfall last night away from more densely populated areas of Florida, in the Big Bend region, but despite extensive damage and significant storm surge, initial industry estimates suggest losses to per-occurrence catastrophe bonds seem unlikely at this time, according to Zurich-headquartered insurance-linked securities (ILS), catastrophe bond and reinsurance investment manager, Twelve Capital.

Hurricane Helene continued to intensify right up to landfall on the Big Bend coastal region of Florida, hitting the coast with sustained wind speeds of 140 mph and higher gusts, while storm surge flooding has now reached the highest levels in more than 80 years in the Tampa Bay area.

Reinsurance broker Gallagher Re has said today that it anticipates the insurance and reinsurance industry loss from hurricane Helene will be in a range of $3 billion to $6 billion, but should it shift closer to Tampa then “the cost to the private insurance market and federally run insurance programs would be expected to notably […]

Hurricane Helene is in the Gulf of Mexico and having wrapped convection around itself looks set for rapid intensification over the day as it speeds towards what is still expected to be a Big Bend, Florida landfall. Intensity forecasts are now somewhat higher, as too are the forecasts for a deadly storm surge and for […]

If hurricane Helene does not deviate from the currently forecasted path for the storm it is not expected to have significant implications for the catastrophe bond market, according to Swiss specialist asset manager Plenum Investments.