U.S. cat costs drop

U.S. insurers experienced their lowest quarterly catastrophe related loss for the third quarter of this year since 1990, says the Insurance Services Office (ISO). The overall cat loss for the third quarter amounts to US$315 million based on three events with a thunderstorm that occurred in the upper Midwest in early July fetching the highest single tally of US$150 million. This compares with US$2.1 billion in losses from seven events that occurred during the third quarter of last year. The cat loss for the first nine months of this year came in at US$3.48 billion compared with US$8.06 billion for the same period last year. This year’s losses produced about 1.2 million personal and commercial property and auto damage claims against last year’s 2.4 million claims.