The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) has now paid out more than $4.3 billion in claim payments for 2022’s Hurricane Ian, which should mean that its reinsurance pays out, Reinsurance News has learned.
A FEMA spokesperson told us that the more than $4.3 billion figure is as of September 12th, 2023, and is on more than 48,000 claims from Hurricane Ian, which battered Florida almost one year ago.
FEMA reported in May of this year that the NFIP had paid out more than $3.9 billion in claims related to Ian, which was up $500 million from the March 2023 total.
But with the figure now above $4 billion, it should mean that the NFIP’s reinsurance program, which covers 4.163% of losses between $4 billion and $6 billion (as part of its $1.064 billion flood tower for the 2022 calendar year), has been triggered and will pay out.
FEMA said towards the end of last year that it expected overall NFIP claims from Hurricane Ian to fall between $3.7 billion and $5.2 billion.
In May, when announcing that NFIP claims paid were nearing the trigger of its flood reinsurance program, FEMA said that roughly 95% of claims in Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina had been closed.
It’s unclear how many claims are yet to be paid and the size of these, so the total figure for NFIP Hurricane Ian claims could rise further and approach the upper end of FEMA’s estimate range.
