2021 was an interesting year. Aside from the continuing pandemic issues, this was the third most active hurricane season on record producing twenty-one named storms. Hurricane Ida struck Louisiana as a category 5 storm and caused $70 billion or more in damages. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, so far this year there have been 54,350 wildfires burning a total of 6,802,729 acres so far. Two weeks ago we had a historic tornado or series of tornadoes tear through the Midwest. While December tornadoes aren't unheard of, this was a particularly strong series of storms, causing billions of dollars of damage, and predicted to be the costliest on record. The total from all these disasters before the tornado totals are in is $105 billion, the fourth highest since 1970 when recordkeeping began. The tornadoes push the number well over the $105 billion mark.

While hurricanes and wildfires are somewhat expected, the collapse of the Surfside Florida condominium building was an unusual event. A large part of the building collapsed in the middle of the night killing most of the residents. Coverage issues abounded, which we discussed in Coverage When the Condominium Collapses our 3rd most popular article of the year. Our chart on Condominium Statutes by State was our most popular article for the year, and we presented two webinars on condominiums and related issues. The first webinar was so popular and raised so many questions that we were moved to have a second one. Recordings can be found here: Webinar June 23 Condominiums: Who Insures What? And Webinar July 28: Condominium Insurance: Your Questions Answered.

We also looked at coverage issues when Texas experienced an unusual freeze in When Hell Freezes Over – Winter 2021. The article linked to a number of our articles related to cold weather as well as questions and answers we've received over the years on related issues.