Tough winter weather has been blamed for hampering economic recovery in North America and Fitch Ratings says that it’s also impacting the results of property & casualty (P&C) insurers.
Fitch says that a bout of severe winter weather is spurring large losses at U.S. P&C insurers in early 2014. The weather through the first couple of months of the year has generated the fifth largest total of insured losses to date, with US$1.5 billion in losses from approximately 175,000 claims, according to estimates of the Insurance Information Institute.
Most of the claims are coming in the upper Midwest and New England regions, it says. “However, record cold temperatures in many regions and widespread snowfall have expanded the scope of weather-related losses this season,” it says. “It will take some time for insurers to completely tally the losses from this prolonged period of heavy snow and extreme cold, though a few companies have provided some loss estimates.”
For example, Fitch reports that Allstate has announced estimated pre-tax losses related to catastrophes for January 2014 of $277 million; Chubb reported a preliminary estimate of $150 million to $200 million of pre-tax losses from two events in early January; and, Cincinnati Financial estimated catastrophe losses of $65 to $85 million.
Fitch says that it will monitor individual company results to see if rating actions will be necessary, but at this time does not anticipate any ratings will be impacted.