Calm after Beryl won’t last, warns Gallagher Re

The hurricane season is likely to experience a lull for a few weeks in the wake of Hurricane Beryl – but that is no reason for complacency, a meteorologist has warned. 

Steve Bowen, chief meteorologist for Gallagher Re, supported previous estimates that insurance claims from Beryl’s landfall in Texas will probably be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, although he said it was too early to offer a specific loss estimate. 

“We are likely to see a few weeks of quiet in the Atlantic,” he said. “This is normal. 

“Even during the 2005 season, there was a full month break between major hurricane formations from Emily in July until Katrina in August. Do not get complacent. The seasonal ramp up will come.”

Bowen said the early arrival and impact of Beryl – which emerged in the west Atlantic and caused severe damage in the Caribbean before sweeping across the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico – supported predictions that the 2024 hurricane season will be well above average. 

“If there were any lingering questions about how much juice the Atlantic Ocean has for the 2024 season, Beryl should serve as a serious wake-up call that we could be facing a few challenging few months ahead,” he said. 

Bowen said Beryl was likely to be  “a very manageable storm for the re/insurance industry”.

He added: “It remains too preliminary to provide a specific economic or insured loss estimate at this time. However, based on the landfall location and the inland track, it would correlate with wind-related insured losses for the private insurance market minimally running into the hundreds of millions. 

“The higher-than-expected wind gusts entering the heavily and densely populated Houston metro region, however, does raise the potential that wind-related losses for the industry could be more notable than originally anticipated had Beryl weakened more quickly while tracking inland. Texas does not have a well-regulated, enforced, or detailed set of stringent building codes that leaves the state vulnerable to wind-related damage.”

Bowen noted that torrential rains which accompanied Beryl led to flooding, with two bayous near Houston overflowing. 

“When combined with coastal storm surge losses, this could translate to National Flood Insurance Programme claims payouts that may lead to additional insured losses into the hundreds of millions,” he said. 

“The prospect of costly business interruption losses remains uncertain at this time. This will be heavily dependent on how long power outages last and whether major large commercial facilities face widespread physical damage or prolonged shutdown of operations as the recovery process begins.”

Bowen said the current expectation that Beryl would be a $1 billion-dollar economic loss for the US might be overdone; but added: “It is entirely within reason that this eventually settle as a multi-billion-dollar cost in the country.”

He added that economic losses in the Caribbean be well into the hundreds of millions of dollars across Jamaica and the Windward Islands. 

“It has already been announced by Jamaica’s Ministry of Finance that Beryl has triggered an insurance payout of $16.3 million from the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Facility,” he said. “The bottom line is that Beryl will be a very manageable storm for the re/insurance industry.”

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