October catastrophe losses top $10 billion: Aon
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Wildfires and hurricanes caused billions of dollars in insured losses during October, according to a report Wednesday from Aon PLC.
Insurers are “facing payouts beyond $8 billion,” resulting from fires across California, Colorado and Oregon during October, Aon said.
The fires included the Cameron Peak fire in Colorado, the Beachie Creek fire in Oregon, and the North Complex and Creek fires in California. In Colorado, three of the four largest fires on the state’s modern record have occurred since July 31, the report said.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Delta made U.S. landfall Oct. 9 along the southwestern Louisiana coast as a Category 2 hurricane with “significant storm surge, incessant rainfall, and hurricane-force wind gusts to eastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana,” the report said. Economic losses are expected to near $4 billion, with roughly half covered by public and private insurers, Aon said.
After hitting Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, Hurricane Zeta made landfall along the southeastern Louisiana coast on Oct. 28 as a Category 2 storm, the record 11th named storm to hit the U.S. mainland this year. Economic and insured losses are both expected to top $1 billion.
Insurers also face losses in the hundreds of millions of euros in the wake of Windstorm Alex, which hit northwestern France Oct. 1-2 and later caused severe flooding in France and Italy, with a substantial part of the losses “due to significant damage to regional infrastructure,” the report said.
A magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck the eastern Aegean Sea on Oct. 30, resulting in at least 15,000 insurance claims filed with the Turkish Natural Catastrophe Insurance Pool and several thousand more with private insurers, according to Aon.
