Cat hits on U.S.

January 1999 was the third-costliest January for the U.S. in terms of catastrophe claims on record with insurers paying an estimated $1.75 billion in damages. The claims result from four events, according to Insurance Services Office, Inc.’s Property Claim Services (PCS) unit. During that month alone, catastrophe losses exceeded, by $750 million, the total cat losses for the entire first quarter of 1998.

Nearly 800,000 claims resulted from severe weather and winter storms in the eastern half of the country, including an outbreak of tornadoes in Arkansas, according to the ISO. Arkansas posted the greatest catastrophe loss of any state at $250 million. Other large January losses occurred in New York ($130 million), Pennsylvania ($115 million), New Jersey ($95 million) and Michigan ($90 million).

Two winter storms caused over $1.2 billion of insured damage in 29 states in the first two weeks of January. Two other storms in the last two weeks of the month produced severe weather across the south from Texas to Georgia, causing another $500 million of insured damage.

Cat losses this January were exceeded only by January 1994 when a California earthquake brought losses up to $13.7 billion. January 1996 produced five separate storms and tornado outbreaks which cost the insurance industry $1.9 billion in property losses.