South Carolina Insurers to Weather At Least $181M in Claims from October Storm

December 8, 2015 by Amy O'Connor

The mega-storm that devastated South Carolina in early October is estimated to have cost more than $1.4 billion with insurers paying around $181 million of those losses in claims, so far.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley announced the flood damage numbers in a press conference Dec. 1 and said she will ask the South Carolina General Assembly to cover the $114.4 million of the state’s share of damage.

Other storm damage costs to date include:

FEMA Public Assistance – $300 million
Small Business Administration Loans – $82 million
Housing Authority (housing restoration) – $140 million
Road repairs – $137 million
State matching costs for Federal Aid – $114.4 million
Agriculture Industry Losses – $587 million

The South Carolina Department of Insurance said the storm has been categorized as a 1,000-year event, and more claims are expected to continue to come in. The state’s insurance market, however, is able to handle the losses.

“We do not expect this event to impact our insurance marketplace going forward,” said Ann Roberson, SCDOI spokesperson.

South Carolina Insurance Director Raymond Farmer issued a data call Oct. 14 for all authorized property and casualty insurers in the state. The last specified deadline for claims to be reported from the storm is Jan. 4, 2016. Thereafter, reports will be due the first Monday of every month until 95 percent of claims are closed for the impacted lines.

Farmer said in October the majority of claims would be auto-related as thousands of vehicles were caught up in flood waters.

State Farm, the largest home and auto writer in the state, has received 7,120 homeowners and 3,620 auto claims so far.

“State Farm is there for our customers, especially when they need us most following a catastrophe,” said State Farm Spokesman Justin Tomczak. “We are helping them get back on their feet following the unexpected.”

Russ Dubisky, executive director of the South Carolina Insurance News Service, said insurers do not expect the October flooding to affect the insurance market in South Carolina in terms of availability.

“For homes and businesses, the vast majority of insured losses would be covered through the NFIP, which should minimize the impact to the industry in terms of loss ratios,” Dubisky said in a statement to Insurance Journal. “While there were a number of covered auto losses, the industry is expected to remain competitive. We don’t anticipate that a 1-in-1,000 year flood event will have a significant impact on the availability of comprehensive auto insurance in S.C.”

He added that every insurer was impacted by the event differently, however, it is unlikely it will trigger across-the-board rate increase.

“Consumers will still have plenty of options to shop for the best combination of coverage, service, and price,” Dubisky said.

Impact of Other Losses

Haley said she will ask for $140 million from the federal government to cover the housing authority costs. She said state residents have received help covering repair costs already from non-profits, including the One SC relief fund Haley established after the storm, as well as federal aid. But she is anxious to get the funds to help more people repair their homes faster.

“If you have gone through any area you see the debris is picked up and 87 percent of the roads are back up and running the way they are supposed to, but if you take a right hand turn into any one of our communities you will see devastation. And what we want to do is get people back up on their feet,” she said at the press conference.

Haley said her request to extend the deadline to apply for assistance to FEMA from Dec. 4, 2015 to Jan. 3, 2016 was granted. Haley said 90,265 individuals had applied for FEMA aid as of Dec. 1, with several hundred more people still applying every day.

“As long as we are seeing those kinds of numbers, we need to make sure that everybody can get the assistance they need,” Haley said.

FEMA had approved more than 24,000 applications and $71 million in individual aid as of Dec. 7.

Haley said the state is still working with the owners of two dozen dams that are in immediate need right now. She said dam owners who can’t afford to repair the dams can get hazard mitigation assistance. Of the majority of the 541 roads closed by the storm, only 69 are still not finished with repairs.

Haley also asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to expedite crop insurance payments to farmers who lost their harvests because of the flooding.

“No South Carolina farmer that entered this fall with proper crop insurance and a viable business should lose that business solely because of this flood,” Haley wrote in a letter to the Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack on Nov. 23.

Multiple news outlets reported Dec. 7 that the farm industry has asked Haley to seek federal help for flood loss as well. The South Carolina Farm Bureau requested a total of $376 million in federal dollars to offset crops damaged by the flood and by rains after the flood, according to The Times and Democrat.

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