Q1 cat losses firmly over 3x prior year: Allstate suffers $1.7bn

Catastrophe losses for the first quarter increased 3.7 times year on year to a pre-tax $1.69 billion at major US P&C carrier  Allstate, now the fifth major US insurer to admit to heightened Q1 cats inside a week’s time.

The $1.69 billion pre-tax sum is well ahead of the average, not only going 3.7x against 2022's $462 million, but 2.9x the 2021 result as well.

The sum includes $1.26 billion in March alone from 10 events, with approximately 75% of the losses related to three wind events.

The past week has brought a string of profit warnings tied to Q1 cat losses ahead of the high season of Q1 earnings reporting which gets underway in earnest within the coming week.

The Hartford, Cincinnati Financial, The Hanover and now Allstate have all gone to markets with early warnings. Travelers published its Q1 results outright with Q1 cats at 3.3x prior year levels.

Allstate had been sought on the radar since The Hartford published. “The higher cats imply that primary insurers could potentially see higher cats in the Q1 given the frequency of events in the US,” analysts at Wells Fargo said at the time, with eyes on both Allstate and Travelers.

Early estimates for the Q1 insured cat loss tally for the US have ranged from $5.5 billion at Aon to a $7 to $9.5 billion range estimate from BMS and a $10 billion price tag estimate from Gallagher Re.

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