From a brutal polar vortex that froze much of the Midwest and East Coast in January to Hurricane Dorian that killed dozens in the Bahamas in September, Mother Nature dealt Americans a wild and deadly weather year in 2019.
California on Thursday ordered a one-year halt on insurance companies dropping customers in wildfire-prone areas at a time when state insurers are trying to limit spiraling costs from climate change.
Managing catastrophe reinsurance claims is a big challenge for carriers. In particular, dealing with the “hours clause” can be baffling. But taking the best strategy can make a big difference in how much reinsurance a carrier will collect.
As PG&E accepts the latest round of blame for setting off California’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire ever, the state’s largest utility says it’s exploring innovative means of preventing similar disasters in the future.
A recent report by the advisory board of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recommends using blockchain to expedite insurance payouts in the event of a disaster.
It has been quite the turbulent ride for catastrophe insurance providers in the past few years. The US has suffered a series of devastating hurricanes, kicking off on August 25, 2017, when Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas as a Category 4 storm.
The sun is setting at a construction site on "the ridge," as locals call it. Towering pine trees with their bark still black from wildfire are lit up in orange. And Chip Gorley and some buddies are about to crack open cans of IPA to celebrate some rare good news.
The Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.) has just released its whitepaper on wildfire mitigation — as at least 13 fires continue to burn across California.<br />“While our research has been in the works for the last year because of California’s catastrophic wildfires in 2017 and 2018, the wildfires we’ve seen in recent weeks makes these findings all too real and timely,” commented I.I.I. CEO Sean Kevelighan.
California’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) cut off power to parts of 22 counties in northern California Wednesday. Roughly 500,000 customers have been affected by the outage, and numerous schools have cancelled classes.
When Hurricane Sandy’s floodwaters ravaged the first floor of Frank Cattie’s Ocean City, N.J., home, he assessed the damage, filed a flood insurance claim, and braced for the financial impact. But he was certain of one thing: He would not give up his slice of Shore heaven.
PG&E Corporation and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has confirmed an $11 billion agreement to resolve all insurance subrogation claims arising from the 2017 Northern California wildfires and the 2018 Camp Fire.
Fairly or not, many consumers regard insurance as a commodity, so, for insurance providers, a hefty investment in customer experience is imperative to customer retention. And the biggest driver of a positive experience? Quick, fair resolution of claims — shortening the time between claim and resolution.
FloodMapp, a real-time flood-prediction technology, has announced that it is launching in the US. The software will be showcased at the InsurTech Connect conference in Las Vegas Sept. 23-25.
The consensus among experts speaking at the Reinsurance Rendevzous event in Monte Carlo this week seems to be that Hurricane Dorian will result in an overall insured loss of less than $10 billion.
