Insurance: July 2009 Archives

Damage from the July 20 storm that brought large hail and high winds to Denver’s suburbs is estimated at $350 million, insurance experts at the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association said Monday. That would make it second costliest warm-weather storm in terms of insured damage to homes and vehicles in state history, the RMIIA said.

So far, about 52,400 claims have been filed — 32,900 claims against homeowners’ insurance and 19,500 against auto-insurance policies. The claims were focused on Lakewood, Wheat Ridge, Arvada and Englewood, the RMIIA said. The most extensive damage was to roofs, windows, vehicles and trees.

Earlier this summer, the stormy week of June 6-15 caused an estimated $161.1 million in damage to property and cars in Aurora, Parker, Centennial and Fort Collins. Colorado’s most expensive non-winter storm on record in terms of insured damage was a hail storm on July 11, 1990, that caused $625 million in damage, the RMIIA said.

Excerpted from DenverBusinessJournal.com.

Chubb could be forced to pay out up to $2 billion on directors and officers (D&O) insurance policies due to a surge in litigation in the wake of the financial crisis, an insurance expert cautioned this week.  Jay Gelb, analyst at Barclays Capital, warned investors that “given a potential for a wave of D&O litigation, Chubb does not appear appropriately reserved.”

“If Chubb’s 2008 U.S. D&O accident year loss ratio of 78% rose to the peak developed loss ratio over the past 10 years of 120% (which occurred in 2002 due to the tech bubble/IPO laddering), we estimate Chubb could report additional D&O losses of $2 billion, pre-tax over several years,” Gelb said in his investors’ report.

Excerpted from <a href="http://www.insurancedaily.co.uk/">InsuranceDaily</a>.