Harvey Hits Insurance Stocks As Loss Estimates Surge To $20 billion

Hurricane Harvey’s whipsaw of wind and rain across Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast hurt the shares of U.S. property and casualty insurers on Monday as Wall Street analysts estimated insured losses as high as $20 billion.

That would make it one of the costliest storms in history for U.S. insurers, but could ultimately help insurers and reinsurers to raise rates, some analysts said, after a period of low premiums.

“Our best guess at this point is Harvey could result in $10 billion to $20 billion of industry insured losses, making it one of the top 10 most costly hurricanes to hit the United States,” JPMorgan analyst Sarah DeWitt said in a research note on Monday.