U.S. property/casualty insurers received another reprieve from Mother Nature in 2007, according to catastrophe loss figures recently released by the Insurance Services Office's Property Claim Services Unit.
Final figures for 2007 indicate that there were just 23 catastrophes — an event costing $25 million or more in insured property losses — which PCS says is the seventh lowest frequency in the last 10 years. In terms of dollar figures, those 23 catastrophes amounted to $6.5 billion in losses, the eighth lowest amount of losses in the last decade.
Most of the catastrophes (17) were due to severe weather events, including wind, hail, tornadoes, and flooding. Five were caused by winter storms, and one was due to a wildfire. The costliest events? Severe weather damage that caused $1.35 billion from Texas to Maine, and the 2007 Southern California wildfire in San Diego that caused $1.1 billion in losses.
In terms of the number of claims filed, PCS said that insurers paid 1.18 million claims for damage in 41 states. More than 721,000 personal lines claims accounted for $4.4 billion, while 144,000 commercial lines claims cost an estimated $1.3 billion. Vehicle claims totaled 315,000 and cost insurers an estimated $800 million.
“For the second year in a row, the U.S. dodged a devastating hurricane,” said Gary Kerney, assistant vice president for PCS, in a statement. “With the exception of Hurricane Humberto, which made landfall in southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana in September, no other hurricane made landfall on U.S. territory in 2007. However, catastrophes continue to occur and cause insured property damage that may not adversely affect the financial condition of most insurers, but does cause hardship to hundreds of thousands of policyholders.”
PCS said that California experienced the highest dollar amount of claims among the list of 41 states that had insured losses from catastrophes. The other heavily affected states included:
State Loss ($)
- California: $1.23 billion
- Minnesota: $747 million
- Texas: $677 million
- Georgia: $320 million
- Illinois: $272 million
- Oklahoma: $270 million
- Kansas: $262 million
- Missouri: $223 million
- New York: $202 million
- Colorado: $200 million
- Alabama: $200 million
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