Back-to-back storms and complex landfall conditions made for a unique pattern of damage in Central Florida

IRVINE, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — October 17, 2024 — CoreLogic^®, a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, announced initial residential and commercial wind and flood loss estimates for Hurricane Milton. According to this initial data analysis, CoreLogic estimated that industry-wide insured wind and flood losses from Hurricane Milton are expected to be between $17 billion and $28 billion, and that total amount of damage, including losses to uninsured property, will be between $21 billion and $34 billion.

An assessment of the Hurricane Milton damage indicates that the majority of losses, $13 billion to $22 billion, will be from wind, which will account for the bulk of the privately insured losses. Coastal flood losses are expected to be highest in Sarasota and areas to the south such as Naples and Ft. Meyers. This is coupled with precipitation-induced inland flood losses, which are expected primarily in the Tampa Bay area. The combined flood losses will account for $4 billion to $6 billion of the insured loss total.

These losses include damage to buildings, contents, and business interruption for onshore residential, commercial, and industrial property. The flood losses include damage from both storm surge and precipitation-induced inland flooding. This estimate does not include damage to offshore property such as inland marine, ocean-going marine cargo and hull, and personal boats. Insured flood losses include those covered by the private flood insurance markets and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The losses do not include damage from the associated tornado outbreak.

Table 1: Hurricane Milton estimated insured and uninsured wind and flood losses

*Flood values include payments for recovery to home and business owners from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and private insurers.

“Hurricane Milton was an unusual storm, causing unexpected wind and flood conditions across the state of Florida. As Hurricane Milton neared landfall, it interacted with the jet stream over the southeastern U.S. causing the winds on the northern and northwestern sides of the hurricane – generally known to be weaker – to be atypically strong,” explained Dr. Daniel Betten, Director of Forensic Meteorology at CoreLogic. “To add to the complexity, weather gauges in coastal Florida also measured hurricane force winds over Sarasota south of where Milton made landfall, essentially creating two distinct lanes of damaging, hurricane-force winds.”

The CoreLogic Hazard HQ Command Central™ event response team traveled to Central Florida to inspect the unusual level and type of damage along both the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts as well as across the peninsula.

“Given the large concentration of property in the Tampa Bay area, including older residential and high-value commercial structures, large insured losses were possible,” said Tom Larsen, Associate Vice President Hazard & Risk Management at CoreLogic, who is currently on the ground in Florida analyzing damage. “However, what we are seeing is less than expected wind damage and very little storm surge flood damage, especially in the population centers of the Tampa Bay area.”

Meanwhile in Orlando, the team observed damaged billboards and business signs and downed tree limbs, but little to indicate substantial damage.

Flooding, while severe locally, will not contribute as significantly as wind to the insured loss total. The most severe storm surge flooding occurred at Siesta Key, Fla. right at the point of landfall. Flood depths greater than six feet above the ground surface were reported as far south as Ft. Meyers. Precipitation gauges recorded a maximum rainfall depth in the Tampa Bay area. Widespread rainfall depths between 10 and 15 inches were measured with local maximum of approximately 19 inches in a 24-hour period in St. Petersburg.

Two major hurricanes making landfall in Florida in under two weeks will make for a challenging recovery for the residents of Florida and the companies that insure the buildings in which they reside. While Hurricane Helene made landfall over the Big Bend region of the Florida coastline miles from Tampa Bay, there will be some overlap between the tropical storm force wind fields, storm surge, and inland flooding leading to difficult loss attribution between the two storms. The overlap of severe storm surge damage in the Tampa Bay area during Hurricane Helene and possible wind damage during Hurricane Milton creates a scenario where leakage into wind-only policies is possible.

Visit the CoreLogic Hazard HQ Command Central™ to get access to the most up-to-date Hurricane Milton storm data and see reports from previous storms.

Methodology

CoreLogic offers high-resolution location information solutions with a view of hazard and vulnerability consistent with the latest science for more realistic risk differentiation. The high-resolution storm surge modeling using 10m digital elevation model (DEM) and parcel-based geocoding precision from PxPoint™ facilitates this realistic view of risk. Single-family residential structures less than four stories, including mobile homes, duplexes, manufactured homes and cabins (among other non-traditional home types) are included in this analysis. Multifamily residences are also included. This is not an indication that there will be no damage to other types of structures, as there may be associated wind or debris damage and are not tabulated in this release.

Source: CoreLogic

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