Verisk’s Extreme Event Solutions group has estimated that industry insured losses to onshore property from wind in the US for Hurricane Beryl will range between $2 billion and $3 billion.
For those who need refreshing, Beryl began as a tropical depression over the central tropical Atlantic on June 28, organising into a tropical storm just a few hours later and rapidly intensifying over the next two days.
On July 1, Beryl passed through the Windward Islands as a Category 4 hurricane and would go on to become a Category 5 hurricane later that day, the earliest on record in the Atlantic.
The storm made three separate landfalls: Carriacou Island, Grenada on July 1; Tulum, Mexico on July 5; and finally Matagorda, Texas on July 8.
As Verisk notes, Beryl’s imperfect structure played a role in the storm, only strengthening to a fledgling Category 1 hurricane before making landfall near Matagorda Bay, Texas.
“Widespread and prolonged power outages in Texas are likely to be a legacy of Beryl’s arrival in the state,” Verisk said.
At peak, reportedly 3 million households lost power in Texas from Beryl, with more than 2.2 million in Harris County alone.
“The outages could well drive significant claims due to food spoilage, mould, and losses to additional living expenses and business interruption coverages,” Verisk said.
The firm continued, “Heavy rainfall led to roadways and homes becoming flooded throughout the Houston area and in portions of western Louisiana.
“In terms of wind, there were reports of tree damage to roofs. Moderate levels of wind damage in the form of broken windows and tree damage to residential and apartment complexes were observed.”
In related news, Moody’s RMS Event Response recently noted that US insured losses from Beryl will likely fall between $2.5 billion and $4.5 billion.
Catastrophe risk modeller CoreLogic also updated its insurance industry loss estimate for the impacts of Beryl, putting the total for wind losses in Texas between $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion, in line with Verisk’s.
