Here Comes Hurricane Season

As the insurance industry presently deals with the ramifications of earthquakes, tornadoes and flooding, tropical storm season in the northern hemisphere has now begun in earnest.

Catastrophe modeling firm EQECAT has issued its first “CatWatch” of the year. The publication notes the Atlantic Hurricane season is forecasted to be “slightly above average” in activity, intensity and landfalls.

The firms notes that the North Atlantic Hurricane basin exhibits a characteristic ‘season,’ with 97% of historic landfalls occurring between June 1 and November 15 and the most damaging and dangerous hurricanes, with categories 3 and higher, likely to occur from August through October.

Current predictions vary with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center (CPC) expecting six to 10 hurricanes this year, with three to six being major hurricanes (category 3, 4 or 5) compared to a seasonal average of six hurricanes and two major hurricanes. Elsewhere, the Colorado State Forecast (Klotzbach/Gray) forecasts nine hurricanes, five major hurricanes and the Tropical Storm Risk 2011 Forecast forecasts eight hurricanes, four major hurricanes.

In any of these projected storms make landfall, the implications for the insurance industry may be severe. Last month, CoreLogic, a Santa Ana, Calif.-based provider of geospatial and property information services, relased the "2011 CoreLogic Storm Surge Report." The study estimated that more than $300 billion in residential property in 10 major U.S. cities is vulnerable to storm surge.

“The local flood zones defined by FEMA in high-risk coastal regions provide a great deal of exposure data for homes in the path of flood waters, but understanding the additional layer of risk posed by a storm surge is critical for homeowners, emergency response teams, insurance companies and many others to plan and prepare for natural catastrophes,” Howard Botts, EVP and director of database development for CoreLogic Spatial Solutions said in a statement. “As the report shows, in many cases, homes exposed to potential storm-surge inundation are located outside of designated flood zones, and those homeowners need to be aware of their vulnerability to severe damage and property losses.”

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Security risk Core systems Data security
MORE FROM DIGITAL INSURANCE