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2020 has been a year that no one will ever forget. There are three things we want to look at in 2020 and how they could impact the future of coastal private flood insurance.
- Covid
- Social Injustice
- Hurricanes
Covid
When Covid hit in March of 2020 it caused many businesses to come to a crashing halt.
The hospitality industry has basically been non existent and you couldn't pay someone to get on a cruise ship. Airlines are barely surviving. As this happened businesses turned to their insurance companies for coverage.
However many were surprised to find out that most insurance policies don 't cover this type of disaster. Government put pressure on insurance companies to provide coverage. However its difficult to provide insurance coverage when a premium was not charged for a risk.
As these businesses started to close they started to cancel their policies. This started to impact insurance companies as businesses were no longer needing insurance for a closed business. While this was a minimum impact on the bottom line when you add the next two things it creates a major problem.
Social Injustice
2020 has seen the rise of social injustice and unrest across many parts of the country. Portland Oregon has seen many businesses burned and even Atlanta Georgia saw businesses damaged after a man was killed in an altercation with police. 2020 was problem the first time in 50 years that you have seen moratoriums put in place by insurance companies for selling business insurance.
At one point Target had to close its Minnesota stores because of looting.
Hurricane Season
Now onto the third maybe the biggest thing to impact insurance companies in 2020. The 2020 hurricane season was predicted to be busy but no one predicted it to be this busy. In fact NOAA has had to make several adjustments to their hurricane predictions for 2020.
As we write this blog at the end of October in 2020 we have had 27 named storms, 11 hurricanes have made landfall in the U.S. and 5 hurricanes have made landfall in Louisiana.
This ties the record for most landfalls in a year within one state. Florida set the same record in 2005.
Hurricane Sally, Marco, and Delta have all created major damage in the gulf states. In fact Delta and Sally made landfall only 15 miles a part.
Like most people in 2020 insurance companies are eating through their reserves fairly quickly and they are discovering that many of their risk models were off.
So what does this mean for coastal states like Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.
In Mississippi we are already seeing some private carriers halt business completely and we have seen this in Louisiana for a few years. Texas has also had this issue since Harvey.
We could see this pattern start to work its way towards Florida and Alabama.
Does this mean flood insurance will not be available?
No
The National Flood Insurance Program is available for properties where communities participate. It just means that the private flood insurance options could be limited for a while.
This will be a crucial time for you to work with an insurance agency that can defend your risk?
What does this mean?
This means being able to show how a risk may have changed because of mitigation efforts even if it has flooded. We see customers rejected everyday because someone did not defend their property correctly.
If you have questions about what your flood insurance are in these areas then click here. You can also check out our
where we do daily flood education videos. You can also check out our
Remember we have an educational background in flood mitigation. This means we are here to help you understand your flood risks, flood insurance, and mitigating your property.
