U.S. property-casualty insurers paid $4.3 billion in catastrophe claims last year, making 2000 the second-lowest year for catastrophe losses in the past decade, according to estimates by the Property Claim Services unit of the Insurance Services Office, Inc.
The year's 24 natural disasters produced 1.4 million catastrophe claims, also the second-lowest since 1991, PCS noted.
Catastrophe losses in 2000 were 53 percent below the 10-year average for insured-property losses of $9.1 billion per year, the ISO unit's year-end analysis shows. Last year's 24 catastrophes were also well below the 33 events-per-year average of the last 10 years.
Catastrophe losses also were relatively modest in fourth-quarter 2000 — $545 million from four events that generated 210,000 claims, compared with two events and 130,000 claims in the period a year earlier.
