As a part of the AAIS Pulse: Chicago presentation, Dr. Bob Hartwig, the director of the Risk and Uncertainty Management Center and clinical associate professor at University of South Carolina, sat down to shed light on the economy, inflation and government actions impacting the insurance industry at a time when losses from natural catastrophes are hurting underwriting results and the availability of reinsurance.

“Hurricane Ian is really what’s on everyone’s mind today,” shared Hartwig. “The latest insured loss estimates run between $55 billion all the way up to $75 billion dollars and that’s inclusive of flood related losses including those through the national flood insurance program, and a couple billion of that is going to come from the catastrophe bond market as well. So, there’s a big hit all around and on the higher end of that it potentially becomes the most costly natural disaster in the U.S. history superseding Hurricane Katrina in terms of insuring losses.”

Hartwig also went on to say that with such an enormous amount of insured loss due to a natural disaster “…therein lies the rub…the huge gap between the lack of insurance and those losses that are actually insured is unfortunately a breeding ground for trial lawyers waiting to sue the insurance industry who will claim that certain losses in fact should have been covered.”

To hear more about his insights regarding Hurricane Ian and its affect on the Florida insurance and broader U.S. markets, please click the video above.