Wildfire cat bond news

Questions related to the hours clause are being raised with respect to the recent California wildfires, as some cedants look to the possibility of claiming more than once on their reinsurance or retrocession protection, Artemis has learned.

The insurance and reinsurance industry loss estimate for the northern Californian Camp wildfire has now been estimated as from $6 billion up to $9 billion by catastrophe risk modeller AIR Worldwide.

The Woolsey wildfire in southern California is estimated to have caused at least a $2.5 billion insurance and reinsurance industry loss by catastrophe risk modeller AIR Worldwide.

The insurance and reinsurance industry loss from the recent California wildfires could be as much as $15 billion, which would still be a manageable impact although reduce fourth-quarter earnings, according to Moody’s.

The recent California wildfire outbreak proved a very difficult catastrophe event to estimate losses to insurance and reinsurance linked assets, as the numbers of properties destroyed by the fire and so the estimated costs kept rising as authorities uncovered more of the damage.

The recent Camp and Woolsey wildfires in the state of California are estimated to have caused total residential and commercial property losses of between $15 billion and $19 billion, according to Corelogic.

The latest outbreak of California wildfires have now burned their way through more than 20,000 residential or commercial properties and minor structures and this is expected to result in economic losses of above $10 billion, if not much higher, according to broker Aon, with the majority expected to be insured.

The property loss from the Camp wildfire in California continues to increase as investigations within the almost contained blaze continue, with the total number of residential, commercial and minor structures destroyed by the Camp fire alone rising by another 1,273 or 7% to reach a total of 18,421.

While losses from the ongoing California wildfire outbreak are set to likely be the most significant from the peril ever faced by insurance and reinsurance markets, rating agency Fitch says they should still have been priced into policies.

The number of properties destroyed by the ongoing California wildfire outbreak has risen by another 8% since yesterday, with the total rising to 18,652 structures, across residential, commercial and other buildings types, largely driven by continued assessment of the Camp fire in Butte County.