Insurers warned of ‘intense’ hurricane season

WASHINGTON — Insurers are being warned about what is being called an above-average season of hurricane activity, according to Insurance Insight.

The warning comes on the heels of a series of tornadoes in Oklahoma, the largest of which could become the insurance industry's most expensive twister on record, the article stated.

According to the article, the NOAA is estimating that the odds of an above-normal hurricane season are as high as 70 percent, while Tropical Storm Risk, which is a consortium forecasting service that draws from University College London, Aon Benfield, RSA and Crawford & Company, has put the likelihood of above-normal numbers of landfalls at 63 percent.

However, a spokesman for catastrophe modeller Eqecat has expressed that this activity will not necessarily equate to large losses, the article noted.

"Most years do not have significant hurricane losses — a large portion of the US coastline is not near a major metropolitan center, and there needs to be a large underlying population to develop catastrophic losses," said the spokesman.

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