The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (FOIR) has reported that insured claims from last year’s hurricane Irma counted by the regulator has increased by a further 8% to almost $10.5 billion, as loss creep from the storm continues.
The Florida regulator states that claims are being closed, although, according to an August 13th data call nearly 82,500 claims remain open, which is only a 10% decline from the June 12th data call.
While unclear, this does suggest that the reported insured claims from the regulator is likely to rise further, which in turn could result in additional loss creep hitting insurers, reinsurers, and also insurance-linked securities (ILS) players.
The losses from hurricane Irma have been escalating with a number of claims being re-opened as well, due to issues including claims inflation related to high loss adjuster costs, and also assignment of benefits (AOB) related issues, all being cited as part of the cause.
Reinsurance News reported previously that the loss creep from Irma for a number of Floridian players had now exceeded $1 billion, while sister publication Artemis, reported that some ILS funds and collateralized reinsurance vehicles were also feeling the impact.
According to the regulator, 92.4% of residential property claims have now been closed. Commercial property continues to lag with just 74.3% of claims closed. 93.3% of private flood claims have been closed, 89.6% of business interruption claims, and 97.2% of other business lines’ claims have now been closed.
In total, 91.7% of claims have been closed as at the August 13th data call, according to the Florida regulator.
The final insurance and reinsurance industry loss from hurricane Irma is of course far higher than the regulator total, as this only addresses primary insurer claims reported to it in filings.
However, the data shows that there is still some way to go before the final loss total is fully understood, and the hurricane Irma loss is expected to continue to creep as a result, with potential further negative impacts for certain providers of reinsurance capital.
