Hurricane Milton private market insured losses up to $36bn: Moody’s RMS

Moody’s RMS Event Response has estimated that private market insured losses from hurricane Milton will fall in a range between $22 billion and $36 billion, with a best estimate of $26 billion.

The estimate includes only privately insured losses from wind, storm surge, and precipitation-induced flood damage from the event. It does not include any losses to the NFIP.

Wind and storm surge losses are estimated in a range from $21 billion to $34 billion, while inland flood insured losses excluding the NFIP are seen as just $1 billion to $2 billion.

Moody’s RMS says its best estimate for hurricane Milton is $26 billion.

With a mid-point insured loss estimate of $29 billion for hurricane Milton, the Moody’s RMS figure is slightly lower than the mid across all the estimates we’ve seen to-date, which stands around $33 billion.

Earlier this week, Moody’s RMS Event Response had estimated that the total combined U.S. private market insured losses from the recent Hurricanes Helene and Milton would likely range between $35 billion and $55 billion.

Now, with this hurricane Milton estimate announced, the combined Helene and Milton loss is seen in a range from $30 billion to $50 billion, so slightly lower.

As a reminder, Moody’s RMS’ estimate for hurricane Helene was from $8 billion to as much as $14 billion, with a best estimate of $11 billion.

The best estimate across the two recent hurricanes from Moody’s RMS is for private insured losses of $37 billion.

Mohsen Rahnama, Chief Risk Modeling Officer, Moody’s, said, “We were fortunate to avoid the ‘grey swan’ event that many feared when Milton tracked and made landfall south of the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area. Still, the storm’s large swath of damaging winds, subsequent storm surge, and inland flood footprints affected key exposure areas throughout the state, which will undoubtedly make it one of the costliest hurricanes to impact west Florida.”

Raj Vojjala, Managing Director, Modeling and Analytics, Moody’s, added, “It’s important to not just consider the overlap across areas affected by high winds and surge in Milton and Helene, but also areas that sustained damage during Hurricane Ian in 2022 that haven’t fully recovered yet.

“Our vulnerability experts on the ground surveyed these impacts firsthand, which was invaluable in discerning the loss potential from Milton. Field reconnaissance confirmed numerous instances of improved resilience of structures that had their roofs replaced recently. It also highlighted areas with older building stock and roofs in parts of Tampa Bay that had not experienced such high winds in recent times, which will likely drive notable wind claims in Milton, especially if they are subject to the Florida 25 percent roof replacement rule.”

On the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), Moody’s RMS Event Response estimates losses across both of the hurricane events could exceed $5 billion.

Read all of our hurricane Milton coverage.