With 335,000 insurance claims representing $1.9 billion in property losses, Hurricane Irma already has exceeded the claims and losses from the two hurricanes that pummeled Florida last year, the state Office of Insurance Regulation reported Monday.

In the devastating wake of Hurricane Irma in Florida, roads are damaged, trees and power lines are down, and houses and buildings have been battered. All of which makes it difficult to get to many sites to review them for claims.

Independent adjusters in Florida might have their work cut out for them — with numerous Hurricane Irma-related claims being filed — but they look set to be compensated for their hard work with the region’s increased pay rates.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue is scheduled to survey agricultural damage in Florida from Hurricane Irma.
Perdue will visit the state Monday, starting in Clewiston. According to a news release, he will fly with Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam to view the storm’s impact on crops.

Twenty miles may have made a $150 billion difference. Estimates for the damage Hurricane Irma would inflict on Florida kept mounting as it made its devastating sweep across the Caribbean. It was poised to be the costliest U.S. storm on record.

Preliminary data on the total cost of damage caused by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma is finally coming in, and analysts are projecting hundreds of billions in losses thanks to the damage caused by both weather events.

Insurance claims are already pouring in from policyholders with properties damaged by Hurricane Irma. The United States mainland sustained about $18 billion of insured loss, with the majority of damage seen in Florida, followed by Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama, according to catastrophe modelling firm Karen Clark & Co.

Following predictions of apocalyptic Hurricane Irma insurance losses, it appears as though the storm may be costly, but nowhere near the worst case scenario.

Joshua Brown was killed in May 2016 when his Tesla crashed into a tractor-trailer in Florida while the self-driving software was active. Brown had not tried to control the car in two minutes, and the Autopilot didn’t brake to avoid the collision.

The remnants of Hurricane Irma swept north through Florida on Monday, leaving behind a trail of debris, flooding and power outages after the storm roared up the state’s Gulf Coast and brought its drenching rainfall and battering winds into Georgia.

First Harvey, then Irma and now ... Jose? Hurricane Jose was 840 miles east of Florida early Wednesday, with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph, making it a Category 1 storm."Jose looping over the southwest Atlantic between the Bahamas and Bermuda," the National Hurricane Center said.

Evacuees from Hurricane Irma were early on Wednesday returning to the Florida Keys, where sunrise will give them a first glimpse of devastation that has left countless homes and businesses in ruins.

Number two on the list of what insurance companies are most afraid of right now — after billions of dollars in Hurricane Irma claims — are armies of contractors and attorneys swelling those claims by billions of dollars more.

Cranes at three South Florida high rises under construction collapsed in the face of heavy winds as Hurricane Irma ripped through the area on Sunday, days after authorities warned about dangers to cranes from the approaching storm.

Only a fraction of mobile homes in Florida were strapped down with the kind of hardened braces meant to withstand fierce storms before Hurricane Irma hit the state, experts said, leaving more than a half-million homes vulnerable to serious damage.