Fewer claims than expected

Hurricane Irma estimates were based on prestorm forecast model

Citizens insurance company reports 45,681 Hurricane Irma damage claims were filed.

Far fewer Hurricane Irma damage claims have been filed with state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. than company officials projected immediately after the storm hit Florida.

In a teleconference meeting of Citizens’ Board of Governors on Wednesday, Chairman Chris Gardner said 45,681 claims have so far been filed with the company in the 17 days since Irma barreled through the state on Sept. 9-10.

Of those, 56 percent — 25,436 claims — have been filed in the tricounty region, where Citizens was the second-largest insurer with 223,464 policies at the end of June.

Another 15 percent — 7,045 claims — were filed in Monroe County, which includes the hard-hit Florida Keys. Citizens had 15,310 total policies in Monroe at the end of June, more than three times as many as the second-largest insurer in that county, according to data compiled by the state Office of Insurance Regulation.

Catastrophe response centers set up by Citizens in Key Largo, Big Pine Key, Marathon, North Miami Beach, Naples and Florida City have assisted more than 1,200 policyholders and distributed more than $836,000 for emergency living expenses, Gardner said.

Citizens expects about 14,300 more Irma claims within 18 to 24 months, Gardner said. That would total less than half of the

150,000 claims projected by the company just after the storm.

The manageable claims and loss totals mean Citizens is unlikely to impose a surcharge on taxpayers statewide as it did after four storms hit the state in 2004. Back then, the company had early 1.5 million policies, more than three times the 453,339 it had at the end of June.

Citizens estimates the total insured value of the 70,000 projected Irma claims will be $1.23 billion — easily manageable for the company. The company was sitting on a surplus of $7.4 billion at the end of 2016, along with significant reinsurance, which is insurance that insurance companies buy.

“Even after Hurricane Irma, Citizens’ capital position is strong,” Gardner said.

The company also expects to recoup $193 million from the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, an additional source of backup coverage for insurers statewide.

Citizens’ spokesman Michael Peltier said the company’s earlier estimate of 150,000 claims were based on prestorm forecast models.

“The models that projected the path of the storm are always best estimates,” Peltier said in an email. “The storm’s pass over Cuba diminished its intensity. As we get on the ground and see the exact path of the storm, we get a more accurate picture.”

Citizens’ experience is in line with that of the industry overall in Florida, which is breathing a sigh of relief as the volume of new claims has slowed over the past week with estimated losses just approaching $4 billion.

Statewide claims totaled 605,520 with $3.86 billion in estimated insured losses as of 4 p.m. on Tuesday, according to Florida insurance regulators. Total insured losses were estimated at $3.86 billion. A week earlier — 10 days after the storm — the tally was 452,205 claims with $2.75 billion in estimated insured losses.

Irma’s storm surge has generated more than 21,000 flood insurance claims so far in Florida and the National Flood Insurance Program has paid out more than $23 million to policyholders, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency said, adding estimated loss totals are not yet available.

Before the storm hit Florida, catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide predicted insured losses could hit $50 billion in the United States. Afterward, the firm revised its projection to between $25 billion and $35 billion for the five states affected by the storm — Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Although Hurricane Irma inflicted less damage than expected, it was by no means a small-scale storm.

Last year, by comparison, Hurricane Hermine resulted in 19,699 claims totaling $139 million in losses after making landfall south of Tallahassee as a Category 1 storm.

Hurricane Matthew, which never made landfall as it ran up the eastern shoreline, generated 119,345 claims with losses projected at $1.182 billion.

Citizens paid out $10.7 million for about 4,000 claims related to Hermine and Matthew.