As of yesterday, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) had paid USD 2.2 billion in claims for Hurricane Ian, which made landfall in Florida as a major Category 4 storm in September 2022, an increase of almost 28% from the figure reported by the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on January 9th, 2023.
All in all, FEMA has now provided USD 896 million to households impacted by Ian, and USD 504 million to the State of Florida for emergency response to the storm.
At the same time, the U.S. Small Business Administration has provided USD 1.47 billion in disaster loans, while the NFIP has now paid USD 2.2 billion in claims to survivors, having received more than 45,800 flood insurance claims, as of January 17th, 2023.
The data from FEMA shows that NFIP claims paid for Hurricane Ian is now rising relatively quickly, up by nearly 28% from the USD 1.72 billion reported on January 9th, which was unchanged from January 3rd, 2023, and December 27th, 2022.
On December 19th, 2022, FEMA reported that NFIP payments for Ian had reached USD 1.46 billion, which was up on the more than USD 1.2 billion reported by the entity as of December 12th.
So, in just over month, the claim payments made by the NFIP in relation to Hurricane Ian has increased by around 100%.
“More than $5 billion in federal grants, disaster loans and flood insurance payments has been provided to the state of Florida and to households affected by Hurricane Ian to help survivors jumpstart their recovery,” says FEMA.
On December 13th, 2022, FEMA updated its estimate for NFIP claims arising from the storm to somewhere between USD 3.7 billion and USD 5.2 billion.
Last week, FEMA completed its 2023 traditional reinsurance placement for the NFIP, transferring an additional USD 502.5 million of flood risk to the private reinsurance market for a total premium of USD 90.2 million.
