Jim Puzzanghera of The Los Angeles Times reports that this brutal winter of heavy snow and arctic blasts has resulted in $1.5 billion in insurance losses across the country, thus making this winter one of the most expensive in decades for the insurance industry.
The Insurance Information Institute released a report using claims data from Verisk Analytics with the details of the damages, which includes, “175,000 claims paid to policyholders for damages such as collapsed roofs, burst pipes, downed tree limbs and auto accidents from Jan. 1 through Friday (Feb. 21).”
From an economic standpoint, businesses have been influenced with unexpected closures, supply chains have been disrupted, and job growth has been slowed.
Claims from two of the four major winter storms to hit in 2014 have been paid, placing this year at 6th on the list of most expensive winters since 1980, according to the report. But once the claims from the two other storms (and any storms yet to come) are paid and factored in, 2014 will surely be in the top five on that list.
The report also states that hurricanes and tropical storms come in first on the list of costly types of natural disasters with 40% of all insured catastrophe losses from 1993 to 2012, tornadoes are second with 36%, and severe winter weather in third with 7.1%.