Insurers are beginning to assess claims from Hurricane Isaias, which came ashore near Destin, Florida, as a Category 2 hurricane on Friday. It was the first hurricane to hit the continental US since Milton in 2024.
According to media outlets, the storm killed at least four people and left more than 800,000 customers without power across Florida, Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas. The worst damage reported so far is wind damage in the western Florida Panhandle. In Milton, Isaias tore the roofs off an apartment complex and a high school gymnasium, and in Pensacola it stripped the roof from a hotel.
Isaias had strengthened to a Category 3 storm with sustained winds of 120 mph on Friday morning, the first major hurricane of the 2026 season. It weakened before landfall as wind shear increased.
Analysis released by Cotality before landfall shows how much property was in the storm’s path. About 777,000 homes across the eight counties under a hurricane warning, from Mississippi to the Florida Panhandle, were at moderate or greater risk of wind damage. Those homes had a combined reconstruction cost value of about $241.6 billion.
The four western Panhandle counties where Isaias made landfall, Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton, accounted for about 353,000 of those homes, with $115.8 billion in reconstruction value. The Pensacola metro area alone had 201,000 homes at wind risk, and the Mobile metro area 161,000.
A further 342,000 homes across the storm surge warning area, from the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Suwannee River, were at moderate or greater surge risk, representing about $101.5 billion in reconstruction value. Forecasters had warned of 6 to 9 feet of surge from the Alabama-Florida border to Grayton Beach, a stretch that includes Pensacola Beach, Navarre, Fort Walton Beach and Destin.
Cotality’s figures assume the total destruction of every at-risk home. They are a measure of exposure, not a loss estimate.
Cotality chief scientist Howard Botts said the storm was likely to produce two very different sets of claims.
“Storm surge is a flood problem, so most of those losses will involve the National Flood Insurance Program and private flood carriers,” Botts said. He added that wind damage and outage-related claims would fall under homeowners policies. Because Isaias kept a wide wind field as it moved inland, he said, homeowners well beyond the coast in Alabama and Georgia may also file claims.
Before landfall, reinsurance brokers estimated insured losses in the mid-single-digit billions, citing Hurricane Sally in 2020 as the closest historical comparison. They said the storm was unlikely to materially change January 1 reinsurance renewals, given the large amount of reinsurance capital available. No catastrophe modeler had published a post-landfall industry loss estimate as of Sunday.
For brokers in the affected areas, the first test will be helping clients through the gap between wind and flood cover. Homes damaged by both wind and surge are where coverage disputes are most likely. Homeowners without flood cover, whether through the NFIP or a private flood policy, will find surge damage excluded from their homeowners policy.
Hurricane deductibles are the next issue. In Florida and along the Gulf Coast, these are typically set as a percentage of the dwelling’s insured value rather than a flat dollar amount. After two quiet seasons, many clients will be meeting these terms for the first time. As Insurance Business reported before landfall, a 5% deductible on a $5 million commercial property leaves the owner covering the first $250,000.
Inland, brokers in Alabama and Georgia should prepare for a large number of smaller wind and tree damage claims, along with questions about food spoilage and additional living expenses linked to the widespread power cuts. Commercial clients in the Panhandle face the added question of whether their business interruption cover will respond to utility outages and civil authority orders, as well as to direct physical damage.
