California’s 2017 Insured Wildfire Losses Approaching $12B

Insurance claims from last fall’s deadly California wildfires have reached $11.8 billion, making it the most expensive series of wildfires in state history, an official said Wednesday. The staggering number exceeds the total insurance claims from the top 10 previously most costly wildfires in California.Until last year, California’s most expensive single fire was the 1991 Oakland Hills fire that prompted $2.7 billion in claims in today’s dollars, according to data from the Insurance Information Institute.