Unprecedented Hailstorm Season: A Closer Look at the Billions In Losses
Friday, June 30th, 2023 CatastropheCountless thousands of Americans this month found themselves racing for cover, fretting about cars and roofs, and covering their ears from the deafening roar of heavy hail.
Time and again this spring, and especially during June, a relentlessly locked-in-place weather pattern has driven intense severe thunderstorms from the High Plains across the South and Midwest. Even far northeast Colorado, which lies squarely in what’s long been nicknamed ‘Hail Alley’, saw one of its worst bouts of hail on record on Wednesday night, June 28-29.
Hail has a much larger impact on U.S. life beyond scary encounters and freakish photos and videos. Insured losses from hail have skyrocketed in recent decades, topping $10 billion each year since 2008, according to Gallagher Re, a reinsurance firm.
This year’s insured losses from the full range of threats produced by severe weather -- what meteorologists and insurers often refer to as ‘severe convective storms’ -- are already on a path to exceed $30 billion, according to Steve Bowen, chief science officer at Gallagher Re.
