wildfire

According to data from catastrophe loss specialist CatIQ, the 2023 wildfires in British Columbia, Canada have become the 10th largest insurance industry loss event to ever hit the country.

Heritage Insurance Holdings, Inc. has reported that its per-occurrence reinsurance protection attached after the devastating wildfires in Maui, driving a “modest” recovery for the insurer during a quarter in which most of its catastrophe losses were retained.

California is moving to avoid a developing insurance crisis in the state that has seen major companies pull-back on underwriting property insurance there, or exit the state entirely, with plans announced to enable insurers to better cover their loss costs and expenses within their pricing.

Canadian property and casualty insurer, Intact Financial Corporation, has continued to experience heavy catastrophe losses from wildfires and severe weather in the third-quarter, already announcing a CA $570 million toll, while also saying that these won’t trigger any reinsurance recoveries for the company.

Rating agency DBRS Morningstar has estimated that the ongoing wildfires in Canada will drive insurance market losses of up to $1.5 billion in the third-quarter of the year.

RLI Corporation, a traditional insurance and reinsurance specialist, has estimated that its pre-tax and net of reinsurance catastrophe losses from wildfires in Hawaii will total between $65 million and $75 million.

Issues in California surrounding property insurance availability appear to be escalating, with two more carriers reported to have pulled-back from writings in the State, while at the same time the legislative appears to have ignored the issues that are making writing wildfire-exposed property more challenging.

Another estimate for the potential insurance and reinsurance market loss from the devastating Lahaina wildfire on the island of Maui, Hawaii, has come from Bloomberg Intelligence, whose analysts believe it could be as much as $4.5 billion.

Insured property losses from the wildfire that devastated the Maui town of Lahaina in Hawaii have been estimated at around $3.2 billion by catastrophe risk modelling specialist Karen Clark & Company.

Insurance and reinsurance market loss estimates for the devastating wildfires in Hawaii are currently ranging from $1 billion to around $3 billion, but it remains very early days in identifying the true costs of the devastating catastrophe Maui has faced.