The recent outbreak of severe storms last month has added up to a massive bill for insurers. The severe storms and tornado’s in April has been called the second deadliest outbreak in U.S. history; falling barely short of the record Tri-State tornado outbreak in 1925. Insurance companies across the board are reporting high losses, such as Allstate, with a whopping 1.4 billion dollar loss; just for the month of April.
Several insurance companies are reporting big losses for April, due to the historic weather events all through the southern states. For the Allstate Corporation, April’s tornado outbreak just added to the all ready mounting loss they were incurring for that month.
They reported 13 major events in the U.S. and Canada for the month of April. Their largest losses resulted from the tornado outbreak across Alabama, Georgia, Virginia and Arkansas. Allstate commented that during the past ten years they have experienced losses from disasters, exceeding 150 million dollars, in around 30 percent of the months.
National Security Group Inc. (NASDAQ: NSEC), is another insurer that reported losses (through subsidiary companies) for April; resulting from the severe weather outbreak. They stated that they expect their losses to exceed 8.5 million dollars. To date, one million dollars has been their top loss from severe weather events (excluding hurricanes).
Although they have historically had major losses from hurricanes, this spring storm event is the worst in company history. More than 1600 policyholders across seven states were affected by the storms. National Security Group stated they have catastrophe reinsurance to diminish the bearing a single, large disastrous event would have on their company.
All total, April’s storms have caused insured loss between 3.7 and 5.5 billion dollars. One CAT modeling firm has estimated the loss of life at 354 people across seven states. This is regarding the four day event that occurred April 25th and lasted through April 28th.
Through the four states of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Virginia, more than six thousand homes were destroyed, over 2500 homes were damaged, and over 100 businesses damaged or destroyed.
