Is Texas now the riskiest state for cat losses?

The Lone Star state led the nation last year in insured losses from natural disasters, which may lead to higher rates

Insurance News

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Insurance agents working with home and business owners in Texas should be on the lookout for higher rates at renewal time.

According to a new report from the Insurance Council of Texas, the Lone Star state led the nation in catastrophic losses in 2015 with tornado, hailstorm and fire losses well over $3 billion. In fact, the state had more than three times as many claims and almost three times the dollar amount in losses as the next highest ranked states.

And that doesn’t even include flood losses, which were in the hundreds of millions of dollars in Texas after December’s tornados and rainstorms.

All told, Texas had $3.2 billion in estimated insured losses from catastrophic weather events last year, significantly outpacing the next highest state – California – with $1.2 billion. The state filed 466,250 claims from cat weather events, again distancing itself from the next highest state – Massachusetts – which had 139,750 claims.

Other high-ranking states included Illinois, Oklahoma and Colorado.

The ITC report relied on data prepared by the Property Claim Services (PCS), which monitors all states’ insured losses, including homeowners, commercial property and auto insurance, from catastrophic weather events.

Catastrophic weather events are classified as any storm that causes in excess of $25 million in insured losses.

Last year, Texas had 16 such events.
 

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