All the headlines from our Catastrophe Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Sep 25 2020 // Smoke from the West Coast wildfires has tainted grapes in some of the nation’s most celebrated wine regions with an ashy flavor that could spell disaster for the 2020 vintage.Wineries in California, Oregon and...
Sep 24 2020 // The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association’s actuarial and underwriting committee is seeking more data from TWIA staff and an actuarial consulting firm on rate adequacy and catastrophe modeling for potential hurricane...
Sep 24 2020 // Silicon Valley’s innovation engine has been slow to produce useful new tools to help firefighters like Dave Winnacker extinguish the deadly blazes that each year fill California’s skies with smoke.Winnacker, a...
Sep 23 2020 // The Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services’ Division of Financial Regulation has issued an insurance emergency order for people affected by the state’s wildfires. Insurance companies must...
Sep 23 2020 // A lack of firefighting resources in the hours after it was sparked allowed a fast-moving wildfire to make an unprecedented run through Southern California mountains and eventually find fuel in old-growth trees to become...
Sep 23 2020 // Insured losses from Hurricane Sally could reach as much as $3 billion, according to catastrophe modelers, but ratings agency Moody’s expects a moderate impact on property & casualty insurers and...
Sep 23 2020 // Secondary perils, exacerbated by climate change, are driving catastrophe insurance losses, warn a growing chorus of reinsurers and brokers.Indeed, broker Aon reveals that more than 60% of 2020’s insured catastrophe...
Sep 22 2020 // Slow-moving Tropical Storm Beta made landfall on the Texas coast on Sept. 21 at around 10 pm near the Matagorda Peninsula, packing heavy rains and sustained winds of around 45 mph.Beta is the ninth named storm to hit the...
Sep 22 2020 // A wildfire burning through brush and timber from the mountains to the desert northeast of Los Angeles threatened more than 1,000 homes on Tuesday as crews across the West battled dozens of other major blazes.The Bobcat...
Sep 22 2020 // “California, folks, is America fast forward.” Thus said Governor Gavin Newsom, hoarsely, amid brown smoke at the North Complex Fire on Sept. 11. “What we’re experiencing right here is coming to a...
Sep 22 2020 // Wildfires among ponderosa pines and Douglas firs of the U.S. West have long been part of nature’s cycle of renewal, as much as the changing of the seasons.But as climate change makes the region more arid, wildfires...
Sep 21 2020 // U.S. park officials have failed to show enough was done to keep the public updated as a deadly wildfire spread from Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2016, a judge ruled.The decision earlier this month by U.S....
Sep 21 2020 // Hundreds of thousands of people were without power Friday along the Alabama coast and the Florida Panhandle in the aftermath of Hurricane Sally as officials assessed millions of dollars in damage that included a broken...
Sep 21 2020 // Repairs to a leaking gas well just off the Texas coast have been halted because of Tropical Storm Beta, according to the city of Corpus Christi.“Due to deteriorating weather conditions, offshore repairs are...
Sep 21 2020 // Beta, a slow-moving tropical storm, will bring flooding rains to Texas and Louisiana as well as raking offshore energy fields with high winds, but may not reach hurricane strength.Beta’s winds will likely hold at 50...
Sep 21 2020 // Utah’s wildfire season has broken records for the number of human-caused fires and the costs to taxpayers.During a presentation of the Utah State Legislature’s powerful Executive Appropriations Committee, the...
Sep 21 2020 // “I do think the industry has learned from the pandemic and if there is one common theme, it is the power and value of digital capabilities.”— Maryland Insurance Commissioner Kathleen Birrane said of her...
Sep 21 2020 // Even before the coronavirus crisis hit, the reinsurance industry was in a period of significant rate hardening, which will likely continue over the next two years, or even longer, according to Munich Re.Such price...
Sep 18 2020 // Rains may bring some reprieve to those suffering from massive blazes in the Pacific Northwest in the next few weeks, but forecasters don’t expect any help for wildfire-plagued California anytime soon.That’s...
Sep 18 2020 // Hurricane Sally is not expected to cause a major insurance loss – compared to events such as the ongoing wildfires in California, Oregon, and Washington, or Hurricane Laura, according to AM Best. As the storm was more of...