Insured losses from storms, wildfires in billions of dollars: Aon

Japan’s insured losses from Typhoon Hagibis are to be “minimally in the billions,” according to the latest Global Catastrophe Recap report from Aon PLC on Thursday, which covers natural disaster events during October 2019.

Typhoon Hagibis made landfall in Japan’s Iza Peninsula on Oct. 12 before moving on to the greater Tokyo metro region, leaving more than 93,250 structures damaged or destroyed and at least 95 fatalities, the report said, and is “likely to become one of 2019’s costliest events.”

California wildfires have destroyed 732 structures as of Nov. 5, and most of the more than $100 million in economic damages is covered by insurance, Aon said. The most destructive of the Oct. 10-17 fires that killed three included the Saddle Ridge Fire in Los Angeles County and Sandalwood Fire in Riverside County.

More fires ignited across Northern and Southern California from Oct. 23 into early November, with total economic and insured losses expected to reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars, Aon said.

Severe weather in the U.S. also led to losses in the hundreds of millions, the report showed.

Insurers paid nearly $190 million in claims after an early season coastal storm system brought periods of heavy rainfall and high winds across the mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Oct. 16-17.

Half of Tropical Storm Nestor’s economic losses of some $150 million were insured after the storm came ashore in the Florida Panhandle on Oct. 19 as a post-tropical cyclone at St. Vincent Island, the report said.

A severe weather outbreak spawned nearly 30 tornado touchdowns, damaging winds and large hail across the Plains and Southeast on Oct. 20-21, causing economic and insured losses “likely to reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars; if not higher,” and leaving at least four fatalities, the report said.

“Events such as Typhoon Hagibis in Japan and wildfires in California served as a reminder of the repetitive, or clustering, nature of certain perils on a year-to-year basis that can often be hard to predict,” Steve Bowen, director and meteorologist within Aon’s Impact Forecasting team, said in a statement with the report.