Hurricane Ida insured losses could reach up to $30bn

Insured losses from Ida, which struck Louisiana on Sunday, August 29th as a Category 4 hurricane - said to be one of the strongest to make landfall in the continental US, is expected to be in the double-digit billion of dollars or up to roughly $30 billion.

Hurricane Ida matched the strongest on record in Louisiana and has brought “catastrophic damage” in its southernmost port region, according to Guy Carpenter.

With sustained winds of 150 mph, storm surge over seven feet, flood emergencies over the entire state and tornado warnings to the east of the storm, the hurricane has already brought major and catastrophic transmission failures. Power failures are affecting 80 percent of Louisiana. 1,080,000 customers in Louisiana and 133,000 customers in Mississippi were without power on Monday morning.

As the storm moves to the Northeast, Ida is expected to travel through Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia before emerging back into the Atlantic over the Mid-Atlantic on Thursday.

Early estimates suggest that an insurance and reinsurance industry loss from Ida will likely run into the double-digit billion of dollars.

Cat risk modeller Karen Clark & Company noted that insured losses would depend largely on how closely the strongest winds tracked to New Orleans.

According to analysts at Wells Fargo & Co. insured losses will range between $15 billion to $20bn. Bloomberg Intelligence analysts have, meanwhile, put losses between $10 billion and $30 billion.

Insurance costs for residential flooding will largely be covered by the US National Flood Insurance Programme (NFIP). With the NFIP already $20.5 billion in debt, Craig Poulton, chief executive officer of Poulton Associates, told reporters that the losses are likely to renew calls for addressing low premiums for the programme.

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