Analysis by catastrophe risk modelling specialist, CoreLogic, reveals that over 86,000 homes in Southern California are at some level of risk from the Thomas, Rye and Creek wildfires, with a combined reconstruction value (RCV) of $27.7 billion.
Photo: NBC news
Of the 86,242 homes at risk, the majority, 72,716 or 84%, are at either low or moderate risk of damage, meaning the remaining 13,526, or 16% are at significant risk of damage, with an RCV of more than $5 billion.
This means that homes with a combined RCV of roughly $22.2 billion are at a low or moderate risk of damage and, CoreLogic warns that wildfires can spread easily and rapidly to adjacent properties and cause substantial damage even if a property isn’t actually considered to be high risk in its own right.
Insurers and reinsurers experienced heavy catastrophe losses in the third-quarter of 2017 as well as the costly California wildfires that occurred in October and, according to industry analysts the latest wildfires could add as much as $2 billion to the insured loss tally from wildfires in the region.
