State Farm receives more than 6,000 claims from Hurricane Debby
State Farm receives more than 6,000 claims from Hurricane Debby | Insurance Business America
Catastrophe & Flood
State Farm receives more than 6,000 claims from Hurricane Debby
Report indicates that the storm could result in more than a billion in insured losses
Catastrophe & Flood
By
Kenneth Araullo
State Farm has received nearly 6,300 claims related to Hurricane Debby from six states, according to a company spokesperson.
More than 70% of these claims were filed by homeowners, while the remainder were submitted by auto policyholders, said spokesperson Michal Brower.
According to a report from AM Best, the majority of the claims involved wind and water damage, with filings coming from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
Hurricane Debby also produced several tornadoes, causing additional damage. Aon initially estimated insured losses from the hurricane to be in the “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
This estimate was later revised after the storm’s remnants brought heavy rainfall to the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. Aon’s Aug. 16 catastrophe report indicated that the storm could result in more than $1 billion in insured losses.
Debby made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane in Florida’s Big Bend region on Aug. 5 with maximum winds of 80 mph. It later made landfall again on Aug. 8 as a tropical storm with 50 mph winds in South Carolina.
The storm weakened as it moved north over North Carolina, dropping below tropical storm strength, but continued to produce heavy rainfall, particularly in areas to the east of Debby’s center, including parts of Pennsylvania, according to Aon.
As Debby transitioned to an extratropical cyclone, intense thunderstorms hit regions along the New York-Quebec border, causing widespread power outages and flood damage in both the US and Canada.
The greater Montreal metro area was notably impacted, with several locations receiving over 6 inches of rain, setting new daily rainfall records. In Quebec, at least 12 of the 86 municipalities affected by the storm declared a state of emergency, according to officials.
The storm led to the flooding of approximately 2,300 residences, the evacuation of hundreds of residents, damage to dozens of roads, sewage backups, and power outages affecting around 500,000 people.
KCC recently estimated that U.S. insured losses from Hurricane Debby could reach $1.4 billion, with $440 million attributed to inland flooding and $130 million to storm surge.
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