US cat losses grow 19% in 2014
In 2014, US insured catastrophe losses reached $15.4 billion, up 19 percent from the previous year, but still well below the ten year average.
This is according to Property Claim Services (PCS), a division of Verisk Analytics, in its 2014 cat review. It added that the 2014 result is off 33 percent compared with the ten-year average of $22.7 billion.
In 2005 the average was taken significantly higher: US catastrophe events resulted in more than $50 billion in insured losses, about 80 percent of which came from Hurricane Katrina.
Frequency for 2014 was slightly above the ten-year average of 29.5 events, with 32 US catastrophe events over the year.
Over the past ten years, 2014 is one of only five years in which the number of catastrophe events designated by PCS reached at least 30. The most active year of the past decade was 2008, during which PCS designated 37 US catastrophe events.
PCS designated six catastrophe events in the fourth quarter of 2014, resulting in just under $700 million in insured losses. This made it the quietest fourth quarter since 2009 ($200 million). The most severe fourth quarter was in 2012, when Superstorm Sandy caused $18.8 billion in insured losses.
However, frequency was up significantly in the fourth quarter, with the ten year average being 3.3.
The most active fourth quarter of the past ten years was 2006, during which 6 events occurred, resulting in $1.5 billion in insured losses. The quietest fourth quarters of the past decade came in 2008, 2009, and 2012 — each of which had only 1 PCS-designated catastrophe event.
