Hurricane Irma's powerful arrival in Florida has led to significant damage from a combination of wind, flood and storm surge.
The life-threatening and property destroying storm surge was forecasted to be 10 to 15 feet, but as the storm dissipated over land, so did the extreme storm surge forecasts. Nonetheless, Irma's impacts on Florida and the greater South are a stiff reminder of the importance of understanding how your insurance policy will respond to all aspects of a natural disaster.
|Wording matters
The clearer your understanding of what your insurance policy says, the more prepared you will be for a catastrophic event claim. Nearly every major catastrophe brings questions around coverage in a property policy. You must understand whether storm surge is defined as windstorm or flood in your policy. For example, if your company has $100 million of windstorm coverage, how does your policy define "windstorm?" Does that definition include storm surge or is that part of your flood sublimit, which might be less than $100 million?
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
