About Caroline McDonald

Caroline McDonald is a writer and former senior editor of the Risk Management Monitor and Risk Management magazine.
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Hurricane Matthew Could Impact Renewals, Reinsurers

Downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone on Sunday, Hurricane Matthew proceeded to work its way north, pummeling coastal regions of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, where rivers are overflowing and flooding continues. So far, Matthew has killed nearly 900 people in Haiti and 17 in the United States. More than 2 million U.S. homes and businesses lost power over the weekend, according to Reuters.

CoreLogic said today that it anticipates hurricane-related insured property losses for both residential and commercial properties to be between billion and billion from wind and storm surge damage.

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The amount does not include insured losses related to additional flooding, business interruption or contents.

CoreLogic: Hurricane Matthew Loss Contribution by County in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina
lorelogic-losses

Willis Towers Watson said on Friday that the storm’s losses are not expected to adversely affect the insurance industry, due to abundant capacity. Organizations with upcoming renewals, however, may be impacted, the company warned.

“There will still be upset for the next couple of weeks, and underwriters will be skittish about renewing business until they calculate their losses,” Gary Marchitello, head of property broking at Willis Towers Watson, said in a statement. “Anyone with the misfortune of renewing programs with East or Gulf coast exposures over the next 4 to 6 weeks will be challenged to secure property coverage at favorable terms.”

Despite the excess capacity, the market is “ripe for an opportunity to turn,” and an event or aggregated events “will drive pricing adjustments,” he said.

Fitch Ratings said Hurricane Matthew will put pressure on earnings of some insurance underwriters in Florida and other southeast states but is “not expected to present a major capital challenge.” If storm insured losses exceed $10 billion, Fitch said a greater proportion of the losses will be borne by reinsurers as opposed to primary companies.

According to Fitch, the homeowner’s market share has shifted away from large national writers and the state-sponsored Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to a number of smaller Florida homeowners specialists. “A lack of storm activity over the last decade has substantially increased the claims paying resources to meet catastrophe losses, such as those arising from Matthew, of both Citizens and state-sponsored reinsurer, the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (FHCF),” Fitch said.

Primary insurers with the largest exposure in Florida are: Universal Insurance Holding Group, Tower Hill Group, State Farm Mutual Group, Citizens Property Insurance Corporation and Federated National Insurance Company.

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Property insurers writing business in Florida rely heavily on reinsurance protection and other methods to mitigate their risk of extreme loss.

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“As a result, the FHCF, the traditional and collateralized reinsurance markets and the catastrophe bond market could have meaningful exposure to losses from Matthew,” Fitch said. Fitch estimates that FHCF has assumed the largest level of premiums by a wide margin. Among private entities, Lloyd’s of London appears to be the next largest reinsurer followed by Allianz SE; Tokio Marine Holdings, Inc.; Everest Re Group, Ltd.; and XL Group Plc., Fitch said.

Anticipating Hurricane Matthew, 4 States Declare Emergency

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Rebounding to Category 4 hurricane classification, Matthew now has winds up to 140 miles per hour and has caused at least 28 deaths in three Caribbean countries. It is heading for the southeastern U.S., where four states—Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina—have issued a state of emergency and evacuation orders in coastal regions.

Matthew was a Category 4 hurricane through Tuesday, was downgraded to a Category 3 early on Wednesday, and has now returned to Category 4 strength today, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC).

Florida Gov. Rick Scott issued a warning on Thursday urging those in evacuation zones to leave immediately. “Based on the current forecast, the heights of storm surge will be above ground. Waves will be crashing on roofs. Homes will be destroyed,” he tweeted in both English and Spanish on Thursday morning.

“Time is up, Hurricane Matthew is approaching Florida. If you are in an evacuation zone, leave now,” he said in a statement. “To everyone on Florida’s east coast, if you are reluctant to evacuate, just think of all the people the hurricane has already killed.  You and your family could be among these numbers if you don’t take this seriously.”

Scott said that so far more than 4,000 National Guard members have been activated to help with evacuations and sheltering. He tweeted that as of 6:00 a.m., more than 3,000 people were in about 60 shelters.

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The state offers a mobile app to help those in flood-prone areas find the nearest shelter and also avoid traffic congestion.

A state of emergency has been declared by Georgia’s governor for 13 coastal counties. South Carolina’s governor declared a state of emergency and has begun coastal evacuations that may affect up to 1 million people. Because of heavy traffic, lane reversals on some highways are in effect, and schools and government offices in 25 South Carolina counties are closed today.

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North Carolina’s governor has declared a state of emergency for more than 50 counties and issued a mandatory evacuation order for Ocracoke Island, AIR Worldwide reported.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has sent personnel and supplies to all four states, and President Obama is meeting with FEMA officials coordinating the response to Hurricane Matthew at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

According to CoreLogic, a Category 3 storm hitting Miami could potentially damage 176,000 homes at a reconstruction cost value (RCV) of about $3.8 billion.

CoreLogic’s Storm Surge Risk Report estimates that more than 6.8 million homes located along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts are at risk of storm surge damage, with a total RCV of about $1.5 trillion.The length of coastline, coastal elevation and density of residential development all contribute to the risk of storm surge flooding.
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According to CoreLogic, the total number and total value of residential properties for the four states currently bracing for Hurricane Matthew are:

Total Number and Total Value of Residential Properties by State

P&C Insurers See $1.5 Billion Net Underwriting Loss in 1H

A deteriorated combined ratio seen by insurers along with slow net written premium growth contributed to net underwriting losses of $1.5 billion in the first half of 2016. Insurers’ combined ratio deteriorated to 99.8% from 97.6% in the first-half of 2015, and net written premium growth slowed to 3.0% from 4.1% a year earlier, according to a report from ISO and the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI).

The Insurance Information Institute’s Steven N. Weisbart explained:

In general, premiums may grow for any or all of several reasons. First, there is growth in the number and/or value of insurable interests (such as property and liability risks). Second, there is an increase in the willingness of buyers who had some or no insurance to purchase or add to their insurance protection, net of those who reduce or drop it. And third, there is an increase in rates (that is, the price per unit of coverage).

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Net investment income dropped to $22.1 billion in the first-half from $23.4 billion a year earlier, and realized capital gains decreased to $4.4 billion from $8.2 billion, resulting in $26.5 billion in net investment gains for the first-half, down $5.1 billion from a year earlier.
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Direct insured property losses from catastrophes in the United States totaled $13.5 billion in the first-half, up from $10.7 billion a year earlier—above the $11.6 billion average for first-half direct catastrophe losses for the past 10 years, according to the report.

“The industry’s results continued to worsen in the first half of the year, as insurers reported a first-half net underwriting loss for the first time since 2012 and saw their combined ratio exceed 99%,” Beth Fitzgerald, president of ISO Solutions, said in a statement. “Catastrophe losses remained higher than in previous years. Texas was hit by a hailstorm that has been described as the costliest in the state’s history, and several states in the central United States experienced severe thunderstorms. With interest rates and investment yields remaining low, insurers must find ways to improve operational efficiency while still providing valuable coverage for their policyholders.”

In the second quarter of this year, insurers’ net income after taxes fell to $8.3 billion from $12.9 billion in the second-quarter of 2015, and their combined ratio worsened to 102.
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1% in second-quarter 2016 from 99.4% a year earlier.

Their annualized rate of return on average surplus dropped to 4.

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9% in second-quarter 2016 from 7.7% a year earlier. Net written premiums rose 2.9% in second-quarter 2016 compared with 4.

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5% in second-quarter 2015.

NTSB Searching for Clues in Hoboken NJ Transit Crash

Information about the Sept. 29 crash of a New Jersey Transit commuter train into the platform at the Hoboken, New Jersey, terminal is still scarce, as the train’s rear data recorder was recovered but not functioning, and the engineer has said he has no recollection of the accident. The crash killed one person and injured more than hoboken-station100 others during the busy morning commute.

The crash of NJ Transit’s Pascack Valley Line train #1614 was the first fatal accident of a New Jersey Transit train since 1996, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

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Experts at NTSB worked with the recovered data recorder’s manufactures to access data, however, “unfortunately, the event recorder was not functioning during this trip,” Bella Dinh-Zarr, NTSB vice chair, said at a press conference on Oct. 2.

She also said that investigators indicated the allowed speed on the curved area of track leading into the station is 30 miles per hour and it could have supported speeds up to 45 miles per hour. There were also no signal irregularities in the system leading into the terminal.

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The NTSB team is currently photographing the train cars before demolition of the surrounding area. Dinh-Zarr said they were also able to use a drone to capture 109 aerial images of the accident scene, paying special attention to the collapsed roof of the terminal. “This is the first time we have used the NTSB drone to document a rail accident,” she said, adding that investigators used a laser scanner to create 3-D images of the cab car and a portion of the second rail car.

The train’s engineer told investigators that his cell phone was turned off at the time and stored in his personal backpack, which is still located in the cab of the control car, and he had also conducted required brake tests prior to departure.

Witnesses have described the high speed of the train as it traveled into the terminal, renewing discussion of positive train control (PTC), which experts say might have prevented this and a number of other train crashes in recent years.
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“PTC has been a priority for the NTSB,” Dinh-Zarr said. “We know that it can prevent a lot of different types of accidents—train-to-train accidents, derailments due to overspeed, work zone incursions. But we need to remember that PTC cannot prevent every accident, and we just don’t have enough information yet.”

As reported in Risk Management Magazine last year, PTC is a technology designed to eliminate human error by using four components: GPS satellite data, onboard locomotive equipment, the dispatching office and wayside interface units. The system communicates with the train’s onboard computer, allowing it to warn the engineer and display the train’s safe braking distance based on its speed, length, width and weight, as well as the grade and curvature of the track. If the engineer does not respond to the warning, the onboard computer will activate the brakes and safely stop the train.

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Congress enacted the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which required each Class 1 rail carrier and each provider of regularly-scheduled inter-city or commuter rail passenger service to implement a PTC system by Dec. 31, 2015. That date had been pushed back to the end of 2018, however, to avoid possible shutdown of some railroads.