Claims and losses

On Louisiana Citizens, Commissioner Donelon said that the state-backed carrier does not need to acquire additional reinsurance to endure the impact of major losses from the Ida and Laura storms.

The cat bond market has priced a $20mn tranche of Safepoint’s 2019 Manatee Re cat bond for a full loss after Hurricane Ida as two regional, low-attaching deals are set to be impacted by the 2021 hurricane.

Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance had booked $439mn in Hurricane Ida losses by 30 September, implying the disaster will nearly wipe out five of its six traditional reinsurance layers and two cat bond tranches, according to Q3 financials updated on its website this month.

Record rainfall has caused floods and landslides across the Canadian province of British Columbia, leading to at least one death and cutting all rail access to the country’s largest port in Vancouver, according to Reuters.

The four major European reinsurers reported strongly improved results in the first nine months of 2021, despite the heavy toll of catastrophe claims, according to analysis from Fitch.

Insured losses from severe weather events in the US are on course to exceed $20bn, following the second highest October tornado tally on record, according to a report from Aon.

United Insurance holdings (UPC Insurance) reported net catastrophe losses of $37.0mn in Q3 2021, down from $140.0mn for the prior-year quarter, after action to significantly reduce gross and net catastrophe exposure during the past year led to a “materially reduced” hurricane loss.

Climate change is likely to have already driven up insured losses from hurricanes by 11%, and could raise annual windstorm losses by an additional 10-19%, according to the latest white paper from Karen Clark & Co (KCC).

Insurance commissioner Jim Donelon encouraged policyholders to file supplemental claims for expensive rebuild costs.

HannoverRe said that EUR180mn of its EUR221.6mn ceded Ida losses stemmed from ILS businesses that Hannover Re fronts.

Hannover Re has ceded more than twice the level of large catastrophe losses to reinsurance and retro partners in the first nine months of 2021 as it did in 2020, as it retained only around a third of its Bernd flood claims on a net basis.

The carrier revised its cat bill following Ida and PG&E losses.