Insurers throughout the northeast are stating that they have a greater loss-report volume.
From start to finish, this past winter was a treacherous and highly damaging one in the northeastern United States, and now that it has finally come to a close, insurance companies are starting to see another increase in claims from homeowners who are experiencing a new wave of discovered damages.
As the snow and ice melt away, they are revealing the true extent of the destruction that they’ve left behind.
So far, claims to insurance companies have racked up an estimated total of $2.3 billion from the first quarter of the year, as a result of winter storm damage. This includes everything from leaking roofs to ice dams and flooded basements, among other things. That total is from the Insurance Information Institute and is based on all of the claims made for those reasons, across the United States. According to the Quincy Mutual Fire Insurance Co. executive vice president, Kevin Meskell, “This is the worst first quarter of winter weather claim experience I’ve ever seen.”
While the claim figures are below what was experienced last year during the same quarter, insurance companies aren’t done yet.
Not only are the claims still coming in for a winter that seemed to refuse to end, but the surprising thing about this year’s situation is that the majority of the damage was experienced by states in the northeast, instead of being spread out more evenly throughout the country. In that region, there were areas – such as in Greater Boston – that saw 9 feet of snow. It didn’t take long for many residents to discover that their homes were simply not prepared to withstand that kind of weather, unscathed.
The number of homeowners insurance claims that have been recorded are still well above the historic averages. This, paired with the increasing severity in winter storms and overall winter seasons could one day lead insurers to have to pass the associated costs down to the policyholders through rate hikes.
In the case of Meskell’s insurance company, he reported that the winter weather brought on millions of dollars in losses, though he did not provide a specific figure.
