Global re/insurance broker Willis Towers Watson has stated that the company is closely monitoring hurricane Michael as it continues to tear through the southeastern United States.
However, it says that, even if Michael were to reach the $20 billion range in losses, the abundance of capital in the insurance industry would be able to absorb losses
The high-end category 4 storm slammed into the Florida Panhandle on Wednesday afternoon and is pushing inland across Georgia and the Carolinas.
The majority of catastrophe modelling firms have not released insured loss estimates yet, although RMS has looked at historical benchmarks based on previous similar storms hitting the region.
“As we saw with Hurricanes H-I-M in 2017, $100 billion in insured losses did not really rock the market long term,” said Gary Marchitello, head of Property Broking, Willis Towers Watson.
Marchitello added that, although there’s no danger of Michael moving the market, the storm will definitely have a “short-term impact and create short-term insurance market disruption.”
“This is a storm with unprecedented wind speeds hitting the Florida Panhandle, coming on top of Hurricane Florence with another six weeks of hurricane season left,” concluded Marchitello.
