The estimate of the economic costs of hurricane Harvey from Moody’s Analytics has been increased, with the company now suggesting costs in a range from $81 billion to $108 billion, up significantly from its up to $75 billion estimate from earlier this week.
As more information on the scale of the devastation caused by hurricane Harvey emerges, analysts are gradually increasing their estimates of losses from the storm and its flooding rains.
The latest update to the estimates will put hurricane Harvey as the second costliest catastrophe to strike the United States after hurricane Katrina (which they put at $175bn).
The estimate is broken down as follows:
– Homes: $45-55 billion
– Commercial Property: $15-20 billion
– Vehicles: $8-12 billion
– Infrastructure: $5-10 billion
– Total damages: $73-97 billion
– Lost economic output: $8-11 billion
– Total cost: $81-$108 billion
As these economic cost estimates rise the toll to insurance and reinsurance firms will also be on the increase. Of particular interest might be the size of the commercial property, infrastructure, auto and lost economic output costs, as those could be where the private re/insurance market loss creeps upwards the most.
Read all our hurricane Harvey coverage here.
