Texas Led U.S. in Catastrophic Losses in 2015

Tornadoes, hailstorms and fires took their toll on the state last year with insured
losses well over $3 billion.

Texas had over three times as many claims and almost three times the dollar amount in losses as the next highest ranked states.

“Unfortunately, we had one weather catastrophe after another last year and these numbers prove it,” said Mark Hanna, a spokesman for the Insurance Council of Texas. “What is scary is that these numbers don’t include our flood losses which were in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The 2015 estimated insured losses were prepared by the Property Claim Services (PCS), which that monitors all states’ insured losses, including homeowner, commercial property and auto insurance, from catastrophic weather events. Flood losses are provided by the National Flood Insurance Program, which is under FEMA.

PCS lists a catastrophic weather event as any storm that causes in excess of $25 million in insured losses.

Texas had 16 catastrophic weather events last year.

Texas had $3.2 billion in estimated insured losses from catastrophic weather events last year compared to the next highest state, California, with $1.2 billion. Other high ranking states include Massachusetts with $1.1 billion, followed by Illinois, Oklahoma and Colorado (see chart). Texas had 466,250 claims from catastrophic weather events as compared to the next highest state, Massachusetts, which had 139,750 claims.
Other high ranking states include Illinois, Oklahoma and Colorado.

Source: Insurance Council of Texas