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January's extreme weather leads to $1.6B in insured losses: Analysis

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January's extreme weather leads to $1.6B in insured losses: Analysis

January's extreme winter weather caused about $1.6 billion in U.S. insured losses, Aon Benfield Group Ltd.'s Impact Forecasting said Thursday in an analysis.

At least four separate stretches of winter weather affected the United States last month, Impact Forecasting said in its “January 2014 Global Catastrophe Recap.”

The costliest occurred in the second week of January, with more than 20 inches of snow falling in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley areas while freezing rain hit the Northeast and Middle Atlantic regions. The central and eastern United States also suffered the coldest temperatures in about 20 years, according to Impact Forecasting.

The result was widespread property damage and severe travel delays, leading to insured losses of more than $1.4 billion, Impact Forecasting said. Three other stretches of severe winter weather in January caused additional insured losses approaching $200 million, according to the report.

“Business interruption losses were elevated due to severely delayed transport and/or closed commerce,” said the report.

“The current winter season in the United States has already become the costliest year for the winter weather peril since 2011,” Steve Bowen, senior scientist and meteorologist at London-based Impact Forecasting, said in a statement.

“With higher-than-average snow totals, ice and some of the coldest temperatures in nearly two decades affecting much of the country during January, the combination of physical damages and business interruption costs have quickly aggregated into direct economic losses well into the billions of dollars,” he said. “The elevated losses this year are a reminder to insurers that the risks associated with the winter weather peril remain significant.”

The full report is available

here.