Insured losses from March storms in the United States are likely to surpass $1 billion, Aon said in its monthly Global Catastrophe Recap.
Aon said multiple outbreaks – featuring tornadoes, hail, snow, and flooding – were to blame. The most notable included severe weather across the Central and Southern United States, with 122 tornadoes touching down during the month – the most since 2017. Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, and Tennessee experienced the most damage.
This followed record-setting winter weather-related insured losses in February, following a prolonged Polar Vortex event, in which Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas were among the hardest-hit states.
“The Polar Vortex generated record-breaking cold temperatures which extended as far south as the U.S./Mexico border,” Aon said in its February report. “Concurrently, a series of low-pressure systems produced rounds of hazardous snow, sleet, freezing rain, ice, and severe thunderstorms with impacts spanning from Washington state to the Mid-Atlantic.”
Texas was hard hit by the winter weather, which left dozens dead, millions without power, and nearly 15 million with water issues and could wind up being the costliest disaster in state history. Disaster-modeling firm AIR Worldwide says insured losses “appear likely to exceed $10 billion.”
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has been widely criticized for failing to require power facilities to be winterized after the last major storm that caused outages in 2011, thus contributing to damage incurred during the more recent one. Last week, the Cincinnati Insurance Company, headquartered in Ohio, filed suit asking a federal court for a declaratory judgment that would allow the insurer to decline paying damages in bodily injury or property damage lawsuits where ERCOT is found to be liable.
If the federal court doesn’t grant the declaratory judgment, Cincinnati Insurance would likely have to cover ERCOT under its current policy contract.
In February and into March, multiple rounds of heavy rainfall and severe weather generated flooding across parts of the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys. Parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia were most affected.
“Impacts were compounded by localized severe weather, including large hail, straight-line winds, and isolated tornadoes,” Aon reported. “Total economic losses were estimated to approach USD 100 million.”
A large portion of the residential flood damage was expected to be uninsured due to low National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) coverage.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) last week unveiled details of Risk Rating 2.0 – its plan to modernize the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to make it fairer and more sustainable.
The changes measuring flood danger differently – gauging properties’ specific risks and replacement costs, rather than simply whether they sit in a FEMA-designated “flood zone.” FEMA officials said this would end a system in which low-value homes effectively subsidize insurance for high-value homes.
Despite concerns that Risk Rating 2.0 would lead to huge premium increases, NFIP Senior Executive David Maurstad said 23 percent of policyholders will see “immediate decreases,” 66 percent will see an “average of zero to $10 a month” in additional premiums, and 11% will pay higher bills, some more than $20 a month.
NFIP owes the U.S. Treasury $20.5 billion after a series of hurricanes that resulted in claims costs greater than the premiums FEMA received.
“Our current system is just fundamentally not working for us anymore,” Maurstad said, adding that the new approach would result in a “more equitable, accurate and individualized NFIP.”
Lawmakers in coastal states like Florida worried about the sudden impact of higher rates – more accurately reflecting the greater flood risk in those areas – on their constituents. FEMA has ameliorated those concerns by making new rates apply only to new policies when the program takes effect in October 2021. Homeowners and businesses with existing flood policies won’t see a rate change until April 2022.
FEMA said high-value homes in high-risk areas would experience seeing the largest increases. FEMA expects their rate increases would take effect over a 10-15 year “glide path” as they continue to be protected by an 18 percent annual cap on premium increases that is written into law.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) quickly weighed in on the plan.
“The system we’ve used to calculate flood risk, and in turn insurance policy premiums, no longer holds water,” said Shana Udvardy, a UCS climate resilience analyst. “Outdated maps have left homeowners ill-prepared for possible disasters. Risk Rating 2.0 could go a long way in helping homeowners better understand their risk, ensuring they can make informed decisions to protect themselves and their property.”
“It is great to see that FEMA is moving forward with Risk Rating 2.0, which is so badly needed,” said Matthew Eby, executive director of the First Street Foundation, a climate and technology non-profit that has done its own extensive flood-mapping. A recent First Street analysis found the United States to be woefully underprepared for damaging floods.
It identified “around 1.7 times the number of properties as having substantial risk,” compared with FEMA’s flood zone designation. “This equates to a total of 14.6 million properties across the country at substantial risk, of which 5.9 million property owners are currently unaware of or underestimating the risk they face.”
What’s in a name? If you live in “Tornado Alley,” there might be a lot – or less than you might imagine.
The designation refers to a stretch of geography running from Texas and Oklahoma through Nebraska and Kansas (think Dorothy and Toto, their house wrenched from the parched, flat earth and spinning toward Oz). It first came into use almost 70 years ago, when two atmospheric scientists used it as the title for a research project on tornadoes.
But, as the Washington Postrecently reported, some experts believe the name is misleading and should be retired.
“To be honest, I hate the term,” said Stephen Strader, an atmospheric scientist at Villanova University specializing in severe weather risk mitigation. “What people need to understand is that if you live east of the continental divide, tornadoes can affect you.”
Research has shown tornadoes are just as common in the Deep South as they are on the Plains, and there is no real drop in tornadoes as one exits Tornado Alley to the east.
“Tornadoes on the Plains are often elegant and foreboding,” the Post says, “some reliably appearing as high-contrast funnels that pose over vacant farmland for hordes of storm chasers and photographers. The Plains are like a giant meteorological classroom, an open laboratory; its students flock to it every year.”
Which explains why tornadoes we see on TV have that “classic” funnel look – and what we are shown most often comes to be thought of as most “typical.”
In the Deep South, most tornadoes are, as the Post puts it, “rain-wrapped and shrouded in low clouds, impossible to see.” More than a third of all tornadoes in Alabama and Mississippi occur at night, making them twice as likely to be deadly.
But, because they don’t match the popular perception of what a tornado is like and are hard to capture, they seldom appear on TV.
Why does it matter?
Because how we name things influences how we think about them, and how we think about them influences policymaking and individual behavior.
As we reported last year, tornado reports are on the rise – but is that because of changes in weather and climate? Or improved reporting related to technology and the growing popularity of “storm chasing”? Damage from tornadoes and other types of natural disasters is becoming more costly – is that because storms are becoming more frequent and severe? Or because more people are moving into disaster-prone areas?
If you’re not located in Tornado Alley, does it make sense to invest in mitigating tornado-related risks? Probably as much as it does to have flood insurance, even if you’re not in a FEMA-designated flood zone, or anticipate and prepare for winter storms in Texas.
By Marielle Rodriguez, Social Media and Brand Design Coordinator, Triple-I
Triple-I’s “Insurance Careers Corner” series was created to highlight trailblazers in insurance and to spread awareness of the career opportunities within the industry.
Susan Holliday
March is Women’s History Month, and this month we interviewed Susan Holliday, a Senior Advisor at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the World Bank where she focuses on insurtech and insurance for SMEs and women. She is also a non-resident scholar at the Triple-I. Holliday sat down with us to discuss developing trends in insurtech, how technology and innovation can help close the protection gap, and the importance of collaboration in tackling climate risk.
Tell us about your current role at the International Finance Corporation (IFC). How did you fall into a career as an advisor and an investor in insurance?
IFC is the private sector arm of the World Bank. We focus on making investments and advisory work in emerging markets in sectors ranging from infrastructure to banking and insurance and healthcare. I’ve had a 33-year career in the financial services industry, particularly focusing on insurance and more recently fintech. I joined IFC to work on insurance and fintech. I’m currently working within different departments at IFC and at the World Bank and building a board portfolio. I’m also a non-resident scholar for the Triple-I.
A lot of your work is focused on insurance for women and SMEs. What do you hope to achieve in investing in insurance for women?
Before I joined the IFC in 2015, the company completed research in conjunction with Accenture and AXA about the insurance market for women. The study found that the insurance market for women could be USD 1.3 trillion globally by 2030 and half of that would be in emerging markets. The research also indicated that women have a better understanding of risk, are very open to insurance, and can be loyal customers and excellent employees in the industry.
After the She for Shield report was published, IFC started advising insurance companies in emerging markets on how to successfully serve women. IFC already had a program called ‘Banking on Women,’ which provided financing for banks to lend to women and women-led SMEs. Whenever we make investments in emerging markets, we are interested in taking an angle that better supports women.
Can you elaborate on the protection gap between women and men and between people with different financial backgrounds?
If you think about it, the insurance industry has a great history and is hundreds of years old. A lot of products were developed a long time ago when society and family structures were very different from what they’re like now. For example, today there are lots of single women and single parents, and most women work, which was not the case when the products were developed. We also have gig economy workers. The default option has always been to continue to offer products that have been offered for 50-100 years, but they do not necessarily meet the needs of today’s customers, whether they are women or men.
This is the reason why I like technology and innovation. To close the protection gap, we need to protect the things that people care about and that need to be protected. There has been a mismatch between traditional products and the actual risks people are facing.
There’s been a report by the Chartered Insurance Institute called “Insuring Women’s Futures” which looked at different times over a lifetime of one person, and it shows where a woman can be treated differently than a man. For example, having time off for maternity leave, having less pension, and living longer. It pointed out all these things that could accumulate and leave a woman being in a much worse position [than men]. Families are no longer a guy who’s working, a stay-at-home woman, and kids. Insurance needs to catch up to reality, and this not only applies to women but all underserved communities. This will not only be a challenge for the industry but also an opportunity to grow.
As an advisor to insurtech start-ups, what impact do you see these companies making?Are there any recent trends or developments in insurtech and fintech that excite you?
I think insurtech, digital, and innovation are critical. There is no insurance without insurtech. We’re never going to close the protection gap unless we use and utilize new technologies to do it.
One of the trends is bite-size insurance on demand. For example, instead of buying an insurance policy for a year, you would be able to turn it on and off, which is relevant to gig economy workers, and is popular in developing countries. Some people would rather access [insurance] when they need it.
Another trend is using alternative data to close the protection gap and get insurance to more people. If we just rely on the old sources of data, a lot of people get excluded from the market or get priced out. It may have built-in biases, which were not intended, but may disadvantage women or certain racial groups. The combination of alternative data sources and artificial intelligence is exciting.
You’re part of the leadership team for Triple-I’s Resilience Accelerator. Tell us about your work with the initiative and why you chose to join the team.
An area where the protection gap is big in the U.S. is in natural disasters and climate-related risks. We’ve seen so many things happen in recent years, such as Hurricane Harvey, and most recently, the very cold snowstorms in Texas and the wildfires on the U.S. West Coast. I think this is an extremely important area. It’s something that impacts everybody, regardless of gender, income level, or political identity.
I particularly like Accelerator, because I think insurance has a bigger role to play in prevention and mitigation, not just about compensation, and I like the approach of bringing different stakeholders together.
2020 was a historic year for natural catastrophe losses. What is the insurance industry doing to mitigate future losses and to prepare for a world impacted by climate change? What are the industry’s biggest challenges in creating resilience?
First and foremost, making insurance more available and more affordable. For example, there is parametric, index-based insurance, which can be provided at a micro-level and is used in some developing countries.
We need to get involved in longer-term thinking about how we can be more resilient against these risks in the first place. We must think about building towns, cities, and farmland in a way that they will be more resilient against weather losses. It has to do with planning, infrastructure, and it may have to do with changing certain industries.
I would like to see the insurance industry at the table in these discussions with regulators, local and state governments, and with private sectors so that all sides are working together. The industry needs to have a voice and be taken seriously. We need to think about how different parts of society can share the risk of climate-related losses.
Recent flooding in Kentucky “is going to be one that goes into the record books,” the state’s Emergency Management Director Michael Dossett said in a news conference this week. At least 49 counties had issued disaster declarations following days of rain that dumped four to seven inches across a wide stretch of the state and pushed rivers to levels not seen for decades.
Dossett and Gov. Andy Beshear said the state had been in contact with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to seek federal aid and that assessments would be made next week for both the flooding and an ice storm last week. Damage assessments for the ice storm had been put on hold by the floods.
Extreme weather events, like these floods and last month’s winter storm that left dozens of Texans dead, millions without power, and nearly 15 million with water issues, underscore the importance of resilience planning and of homeowners and businesses having appropriate insurance coverage.
Flood protection gap
About 90 percent of all U.S. natural disasters involve flooding. Whether related to coastal and inland inundations due to hurricanes, extreme rainfall, snowmelt, mudflows, or other events, floods cause billions of dollars in losses each year. According to FEMA, one inch of flood water can cause as much as $25,000 in damage to a home.
But direct economic losses are only part of the picture. Human costs are enormous, and it can take families, businesses, and communities years to recover.
Flood damage is excluded from coverage under standard homeowners and renters insurance policies. However, coverage is available from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and from a growing number of private insurers.
Many people believe they don’t need flood insurance if the bank providing their mortgage doesn’t require it; others assume their homeowners insurance covers flood damage; others think they cannot afford it.
A recent analysis by the nonprofit First Street Foundation found the United States to be woefully underprepared for damaging floods. It identified “around 1.7 times the number of properties as having substantial risk,” compared with FEMA’s flood zone designation.
“This equates to a total of 14.6 million properties across the country at substantial risk, of which 5.9 million property owners are currently unaware of or underestimating the risk they face,” the report said.
Current system unsustainable
The NFIP owes more than $20.5 billion to the U.S. Treasury, leaving $9.9 billion in borrowing authority from a $30.43 billion limit in law. This debt is serviced by the NFIP and interest is paid through premium revenues. With flood losses on the rise, the current system is not sustainable without changes.
In December, FEMA proposed “substantively” revising the “estimated cost of assistance” factor the agency uses to review governors’ requests for a federal disaster declaration to “more accurately assess the disaster response capabilities” of the states, District of Columbia and U.S. territories. Its Risk Rating 2.0 initiative, set for implementation in October, aims to make flood insurance rates more accurately reflect insured properties’ individual flood risk.
In other words, the federal government will likely ask states, municipalities, and some policyholders to shoulder more of the cost of recovering from natural catastrophes.
Complex challenges require multi-pronged approaches to address them, and FEMA and other federal and state agencies are working with the private sector to close the flood protection gap. In the near term, the most cost-effective way for families and businesses to mitigate flood risk is insurance.
If it can rain where you are, it can flood where you are. As Daniel Kaniewski, managing director for public sector innovation at Marsh & McLennan and former deputy administrator for resilience at FEMA, put it during a Triple-I webinar last year: “Any home can flood. Even if you’re well outside a floodplain, get flood insurance. Whether you’re a homeowner or a renter or a businessowner — get flood insurance.”
Last month’s winter storm that left dozens of Texans dead, millions without power, and nearly 15 million with water issues could wind up being the costliest disaster in state history.
Disaster-modeling firm AIR Worldwide says claims volume will likely be significant and, with average claims severity values of $15,000 for residential risks and $30,000 for commercial risks, insured losses “appear likely to exceed $10 billion.”
AIR says several variables could drive the loss well above that amount, including:
A higher-than-expected rate of claims among those risks affected by prolonged power outage,
Whether utility service interruption coverages pay out;
Larger-than-expected impacts from demand surge,
Government intervention, and
Whether claims related to mold damage start to emerge as a significant source of loss.
FitchRatings says the widespread scale and claims volume of the event could drive ultimate insured losses as high as $20 billion. For context, the state’s insured losses related to Hurricane Harvey were about $20 billion, according to the Texas Department of Insurance. The deadly 2017 hurricane devastated the Gulf Coast region. Last month’s winter storm affected every region of the state.
“All 254 counties will have been impacted in some way by the freeze,” said Lee Loftis, director of government affairs for the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas. “That is just unheard of.”
All Texas counties have received state disaster declarations by Gov. Greg Abbott, opening them up to additional state assistance. But many rural counties are currently excluded from President Biden’s major disaster declaration.
State and local officials say the federal government moved swiftly to approve declarations for 108 counties and that more are likely coming as reports of damage mount. Eighteen of the state’s 20 most populous counties were included in the declarations. But for the 146 counties — many of them rural — the wait is nerve wracking.
Officials say it’s because those counties lack data on damages. Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said the state is urging residents to report their property damage through an online damage assessment tool. State officials will report that damage to FEMA in hopes it will lead to more counties being added to the major disaster declaration.
Earl Armstrong, a FEMA spokesperson, said in a statement to the Texas Tribune that homeowners and renters who don’t live in a disaster-designated county should file a claim with their insurer, document damage to their home from the storm, and keep receipts for all expenses related to repairs.
Anomalous as the Texas winter storm may have been, it is a salient data point that all states and municipalities should take to heart in their disaster planning. In December, FEMA proposed “substantively” revising the “estimated cost of assistance” factor the agency uses to review governors’ requests for a federal disaster declaration to “more accurately assess the disaster response capabilities” of the states, District of Columbia and U.S. territories.
In other words, the federal government will likely ask states and municipalities to shoulder more of the cost of recovering from natural catastrophes – making it even more important for every state to prepare for and insure against events that might have seemed unthinkable not so long ago.
And as Texas and other affected states recover, they still have 2021’s severe convective storm and hurricane seasons ahead of them.
The insurance industry continues to be a major stakeholder in mitigating the effects of natural disasters on communities. As such, a group of U.S. insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, and model providers are creating an advisory board called Helix.
Facilitated by The Institutes, Helix seeks to integrate new approaches to automated claims analysis into an overarching framework for the application of new and emerging technologies in natural disaster resilience, according to a Risk & Insurance article.
“We are excited to help coordinate this effort focused on mitigating the adverse effects of natural disasters,” says Peter Miller, President and CEO of The Institutes. He described Helix as an opportunity “to serve as a neutral third party in work on this important issue that ultimately benefits the general public.”
Initially building on work to implement open common data standards for catastrophe risk analytics, the Helix vision is grounded on four pillars to support the industry’s increasingly wide-ranging and growing capabilities:
Climate and resilience: Pursuing hazard and resilience research and advocating for innovation in insurance products and economic responsiveness;
Data standards, data content/interpretation/quality, and industry-level data resources;
Technology: Transparency in models and analytics, Insurtech innovations, and technology solutions;
Operations: Common industry tools, improved communication/exchange across the value chain, and support/education for the industry
Helix builds on the work of The Institutes’ Catastrophe Modeling Operating Standards (CMOS) initiative. The CMOS team completed a survey project in September 2020 to establish and implement an open common exposure data standard. This project also provided a set of recommendations for the community to advance the work.
“Based on the interest in and success of the CMOS, it is clear there is a desire for an industry-wide, cooperative effort focused on resilience from natural catastrophes,” says Sean Ringsted, Chief Risk Officer, Chubb. “We’ve received strong interest in creation of Helix and look forward to welcoming the participation of additional organizations.”
The Institutes is in the process of engaging founding members and building out the appropriate governance structure. As those are put in place, Helix members will determine initial priorities in support of the four pillars and leveraging the work performed under the CMOS initiative. Companies in search of additional information, or that have interest in contributing expertise to the effort can contact The Institutes at helix@theinstitutes.org.
A new study from the nonprofit First Street Foundation projects the impact climate change may have on U.S. flood losses.
The report – The Cost of Climate: America’s Growing Flood Risk –finds that, when adjusting for the long-term impact of a changing climate, nearly 4.3 million homes have “substantial” flood risk that would result in financial loss.
“If all of these homes were to insure against flood risk through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP),” the report continues, “the rates would need to increase 4.5 times to cover the estimated risk in 2021, and 7.2 times to cover the growing risk by 2051.”
Last year, the foundation released a report indicating that nearly 6 million U.S. properties could be at greater risk of flooding than currently indicated by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood maps.
The new report is particularly resonant as FEMA prepares to implement Risk Rating 2.0, an initiative to make flood insurance pricing more representative of each policyholder’s exposure and help customers better understand their risks and the importance of having flood coverage. It plans to accomplish this by using industry best practices and technology to deliver rates that “are fair, make sense, are easier to understand, and better reflect a property’s unique flood risk.
Implementation of Risk Rating 2.0 is scheduled to begin in October 2021.
Since homeowners who have federally backed mortgages and reside in FEMA-designated Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHA) are required to buy flood insurance, the First Street data serve as an example of an early indicator of who could be most affected by risk-based rate changes in the near term and as the impacts of climate change evolve.
Potential cost consequences of expanded coverage under NFIP – or, worse, of not addressing the existing flood-protection gap – underscore the importance of a multi-pronged approach to mitigation and resilience that includes improved attention to how, where, and whether to build or rebuild and expanded availability and affordability of insurance.
Texas in recent days has become the latest poster child for government failure to prepare for catastrophe.
A Washington Post analysis places last week’s “rolling disaster” – with more than 14 million people in 160 counties experiencing power loss and water-service disruptions due to severe winter weather – alongside the U.S. federal government’s failure to anticipate and prepare for a global pandemic.
“Other such episodes of government caught by surprise are etched in people’s memory,” the article says, citing Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 terrorist attacks as precedents. “It is rarely the case that these disasters strike without warning…. As many government officials have said, there is little incentive and almost no political reward for investing money to head off a crisis.”
Blame is being apportioned for Texas’s failure to mitigate what now has to be recognized as an inevitable confluence of extreme weather conditions with infrastructure vulnerability. It certainly seems as if investment in a handful of cold-proofing measures for the state’s independent, lightly regulated energy system might have prevented much of the suffering.
But what about other states suffering from service disruptions and their toll in human pain? And what about the next “unforeseen” catastrophe?
Instead of pointing fingers for actions not taken, it might be more productive to focus on developing a national and global culture of resilience; communicating the objective value of understanding, anticipating, and mitigating the impact of natural and man-made risks; and taking steps in advance to promote resilience in the aftermath of events that can’t be avoided.
This is what Triple-I, its members, and partners have been doing. Our Resilience Accelerator curates and shares data and insights from across the risk-management world with a focus on promoting resilience best practices. Our Joint Industry Forum annually brings together insurance and risk-management leaders and subject-matter experts to explain and update anyone with an interest in risk on the latest trends, developments, and solutions. We produce webinars, hold educational town halls, and regularly engage with the news media to help inform their coverage.
We also play an active role in helping to close the oft-mentioned “skills gap” in the insurance industry.
“The risks we all face—whether natural or man-made—are top of mind for younger generations,” Triple-I CEO Sean Kevelighan said recently. “We’re beginning to see these future leaders turn to insurance. They are beginning to understand that our 350 years of history, of managing risks of all kinds, is truly a catalyst for solutions. These solutions will result in a more resilient and protected world.”
Many households and small businesses don’t have sufficient savings to repair and rebuild after a natural disaster. Insurance is a vital source of recovery funds, but many are uninsured or insufficiently insured. This insurance gap doesn’t just reduce their resilience; its impact can slow the recovery of entire communities.
Community-based catastrophe insurance (CBCI) – arranged by a local government, quasigovernmental body, or a community group to cover individual properties in the community – may help close the coverage gap. A recent Marsh & McLennan report looks at such arrangements and how they can promote community resilience.
In addition to improving financial recovery for communities, CBCI can provide more affordable disaster insurance coverage and could be linked directly to financing for community-level hazard mitigation. It offers multiple delivery models so officials and risk managers can explore and implement CBCI as part of an integrated risk management strategy.
Four broad institutional structures for CBCI illustrate the different roles and responsibilities of the community and other partners:
• A facilitator model
• A group policy model
• An aggregator model
• Purchase through a community captive.
In these frameworks, the community’s role and responsibility increase from lowest to highest. In the first, the community is more of a facilitator and a negotiator. In the second, it takes on a role in distribution, choosing insurance options and collecting premiums. In the third, the community plays a dual role: as the insured on a contract with a reinsurer and as the disburser of claims funds.
The fourth model harnesses an existing structure — an insurance captive — that enables the community to provide disaster policies.
“In all cases, the community could offer the coverage for a property owner to voluntarily decide to purchase, or there may be a few instances where a community would compel residents to purchase coverage,” the Marsh report says. “When coverage is voluntary, however, a community would likely need to offer purchase incentives to achieve goals of widespread take-up of the coverage.”
The report describes the four models in detail and provides a five-part roadmap for implementation.
