Aon: Hurricane Michael insured losses could hit $8bn

Aon’s Impact Forecasting team has launched the latest edition of its monthly Global Catastrophe Recap report, which evaluates the impact of Hurricane Michael and other natural disaster events that occurred worldwide during October 2018.

The report reveals that Hurricane Michael killed 45 people in the United States, as it became the strongest tropical cyclone on record to strike the Florida Panhandle and the fourth strongest hurricane to make landfall on the US mainland.

While the Panhandle was most severely impacted by the hurricane, additional wind and flood-related damage was recorded throughout parts of Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. Total economic losses from Michael – including physical damage and net loss business interruption – was forecast to exceed $15 billion, with public and private insurers likely to incur payouts of at least $8 billion.

Meanwhile, a complex severe weather outbreak impacted much of Italy and other countries across Southern and Central Europe during the last week of October and early November, killing 29 people in Italy alone as flooding, landslides, severe winds, and strong waves left widespread damage in the hardest-hit Italian regions of Liguria, Veneto, Lazio, and Trentino-Alto Adige. Total economic losses were expected to exceed $3.4 billion, including a minimum of $1.1 billion in Veneto alone. Additional economic impacts of at least $270 million were registered in Austria.

Other costly and deadly flood events swept through Europe during the month – including the extratropical remnants of Hurricane Leslie coming ashore in Portugal – with a combined economic loss likely to minimally reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Michal Lorinc, an analyst within Impact Forecasting’s Catastrophe Insight team, said: “While the majority of the headlines in October centered around the significant impacts from Hurricane Michael, other regions of the globe additionally endured notable catastrophes. In Europe, a series of costly storm and flood events led to a multi-billion-dollar financial impact, with much of the damage incurred to property and agriculture in Italy. The continent, which has been marked by numerous windstorms, severe drought conditions, and prolonged flood events, is currently on track to have its costliest year for weather disasters since 2013.”