Heritage projects hurricane Ian gross loss under $960m

Florida headquartered, nationally expansive U.S. property casualty insurer, Heritage Insurance Holdings, Inc., has said that it expects its hurricane Ian losses will fall within the second-layer of its reinsurance tower, which covers it up to $960 million of losses.

Heritage said today that it expects to incur $40 million of net retained losses from hurricane Ian, inclusive of reinstatement premiums and participation by its captive reinsurer, Osprey Re.

The carrier continues to evaluate where its ultimate gross losses will settle, but said that they are expected to fall within layer 2 of its catastrophe excess of loss reinsurance program.

That layer begins at $140 million of gross losses and exhausts at $960 million,Heritage said, meaning the insurer is effectively projecting its gross hurricane Ian loss will fall below that level, with the majority to be carried by its reinsurance panel.

So far, Heritage said it has received close to 12,000 claims from hurricane Ian.

“I recently visited southwest Florida and observed some of the wind and flood damage caused by the hurricane. Our highest priority is our policy holders and all those affected by Hurricane Ian remain in our thoughts,” Heritage CEO Ernie Garateix said.

“Our ultimate gross loss is expected to be contained within the second layer of our reinsurance tower and be well within our reinsurance tower, which provides up to $1.2 billion of limit for a first event.

“Our Heritage team includes excellent claim handling resources, robust repair and mitigation capabilities, and an experienced in-house legal team, all of which are supported by technical analytical resources to assist with the claims adjusting process.

“Additionally, we have a highly rated syndicate of reinsurance partners on our reinsurance program.”

Heritage’s reinsurance tower includes a limit of $100 million from the firm’s most recently issued Citrus Re Ltd. (Series 2022-1) catastrophe bond.

On a ground-up basis, this catastrophe bond sits above the second layer of Heritage’s reinsurance tower, covering a share of a losses above that, we understand.

Which means it cannot be considered safe, until we know exactly where Heritage’s gross loss from hurricane Ian falls.

But, at this stage, the Citrus Re 2022-1 cat bond notes had not been marked down heavily after Ian, suggesting the market felt relatively confident that the cat bond would not be affected.

We still won’t know that for sure, until we have a better loss figure from the insurer.

For comparison, United (UPC) estimated that it faces roughly $1 billion of gross losses from hurricane Ian, while there was an announcement of the same figure of loss from Universal Insurance Holdings, the only two comparable carriers to pre-announce their exposure to the storm so far.

Read all of our coverage of hurricane Ian, and our analysis on the potential market losses, here.