RMS Estimates that U.S. Insured Losses from Hurricane Hanna Will Not Exceed USD $400 Million

NEWARK, CA – July 30, 2020 – RMS^®, the world’s leading catastrophe risk solutions company, estimates that the U.S. insurance losses from Hurricane Hanna will not exceed $400 million. This estimate represents insured losses associated with wind and storm surge, including losses to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

“Wind and storm surge-driven losses for Hanna are expected to be consistent with losses projected by RMS’ HWind forecast product suite prior to landfall. The storm made landfall in southern Texas as a Category 1 hurricane with stronger winds than expected. However, the impacted region is an area with low industry exposure,” said Jeff Waters, senior product manager of the RMS North Atlantic Hurricane Models. 

This estimate includes property damage and business interruption from wind and storm surge-driven coastal flooding to residential, commercial, industrial, and automobile lines of business. The estimate also includes wind-driven damage to offshore platforms in the western Gulf of Mexico; however, offshore platform loss constitutes a small fraction of the overall insured loss.

Storm surge losses reflect the impact of coverage leakage, an escalation in claims severity for wind-only policies in instances where wind and water hazards co-exist in residential lines of business. Losses associated with inland flooding are expected to be negligible because the storm maintained its forward motion after landfall and only caused high rainfall totals in isolated areas.

RMS expects losses to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to represent approximately $100 million or less of the total insured loss estimate. Texas has the second highest number of NFIP policies-in-force in the U.S., many of which are located in coastal areas impacted by storm surge from Hanna. 

Hurricane Hanna was the eighth named storm of the 2020 North Atlantic hurricane season and the earliest eighth named storm on record. It made landfall on Saturday, July 25, 2020 on Padre Island, Texas as a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale with maximum sustained winds of 90 mph (150 km/hr). Hanna maintained this intensity and made a second landfall shortly after in Kenedy County.

For this loss estimate, wind and storm surge impacts were simulated using version 18.1 RMS North Atlantic Hurricane Models, and RMS ensemble footprints, which are hazard reconstructions of Hanna’s wind field and storm surge.

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The technology and data used in providing this Information is based on the scientific data, mathematical and empirical models, and encoded experience of scientists and specialists. As with any model of physical systems, particularly those with low frequencies of occurrence and potentially high severity outcomes, the actual losses from catastrophic events may differ from the results of simulation analyses.

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