winter storm

The ongoing winter storm event in the United States, named winter storm Uri, is thought likely to become the largest winter storm loss on record for the insurance and reinsurance industry, while the Texas insurance regulator said it could have a bigger impact than hurricane Harvey.

Winter storms and severe weather in March across the United States is likely to drive around $3 billion in economic losses, with two-thirds likely to fall to insurance and reinsurance, translating to an industry loss of roughly $2 billion for the month, according to Impact Forecasting.

The severe winter storm and historic blizzard that struck the U.S. east this weekend is expected to be the first weather event of 2016 to result in an economic loss of over $1 billion, and is likely to be a multi-billion dollar event, according to Impact Forecasting.

Winter storm Jonas, the first severe such storm of the year, will strike the U.S. in the coming days, with impacts expected from the mid-South and Ohio Valley to the East Coast. Many metropolitan areas will see heavy snowfalls, high winds and there is the potential for coastal storm tide and surge flooding.

Following the intense, cold winter 2014/2015 in the U.S., estimations have put the resulting industry-wide insured loss figure at $2.3 billion, a $200 million decrease on the 2013/2014 season, according to Munich Re and Property Claim Services (PCS).

Reinsurance broker Aon Benfield’s catastrophe modelling unit Impact Forecasting said that early estimates suggest aggregated economic losses from February’s winter storms in the U.S. will be in the low-digit billions of dollars, while insured losses are likely to exceed $1 billion.

Insurance and reinsurance broker Aon’s catastrophe risk modelling unit Impact Forecasting said that insured losses from the recent U.S. winter storms should be expected to be above average, however it is too early to provide any certainty on the impact to reinsurance programmes or even cat bonds.

The recent severe snowstorm in the Buffalo, New York state area, could cause losses at some regional property insurance writers to the extent that it hits the retention on their catastrophe reinsurance treaties, according to A.M. Best.

U.S. insured catastrophe losses from winter storms in 2014 are likely to reach $2.5 billion plus by year’s end, which would be the fourth costliest year for winter storm losses on record, so could trouble some reinsurance contracts, but not cat bonds yet.

The UK insurance industry is facing losses of £1.1 billion from this winters severe weather which saw strong European windstorms and heavy rainfall cause widespread damage and trigger devastating floods across the UK according to the ABI.