Triggered a record $44 million payout to the nation of Grenada from a regional catastrophe insurance fund
Insurers in the United States may take a hit of about $2.7 billion from damage caused by Hurricane Beryl, catastrophe modeling company Karen Clark & Co (KCC) said on Thursday.
About 1.5 million customers remained without power in Texas on Wednesday, two days after Beryl raked the state as progress to restore electricity was slow, hampering efforts to quickly restart critical oil infrastructure.
The storm made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday near the coastal town of Matagorda, about 100 miles (160 km) from Houston, lashing Texas with heavy winds that knocked down power lines and damaged property.
The U.S. estimate includes the privately insured damage to residential, commercial, and industrial properties and automobiles, as well as business interruption, KCC said in a report.
It does not include boats, offshore properties, or National Flood Insurance Program losses.
KCC also said privately insured losses would be close to $510 million in the Caribbean and $90 million in Mexico.
The U.S. estimate includes the privately insured damage to residential, commercial, and industrial properties and automobiles, as well as business interruption, KCC said in a report.
It does not include boats, offshore properties, or National Flood Insurance Program losses.
KCC also said privately insured losses would be close to $510 million in the Caribbean and $90 million in Mexico.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Beryl’s path of destruction through the Caribbean last week triggered a record $44 million payout to the nation of Grenada from a regional catastrophe insurance fund.
The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, or CCRIF, said it will be paying Grenada $42 million in cyclone insurance, $1.1 million in fisheries insurance and $549,000 for excess rainfall tied to Beryl.
CCRIF’s single-largest payout before the storm was about $40 million to Haiti following its 2021 earthquake.
The storm also triggered payouts in St. Vincent and the Grenadines for $1.8 million, Trinidad and Tobago for $373,000, and an undetermined amount for Jamaica, the facility said in a statement Wednesday. Since its inception in 2007, CCRIF has made 65 payouts totaling more than $274 million.
Beryl hit the Caribbean as the earliest Category 5 storm on record, causing as much as $1.5 billion in damage in the Windward Islands, according to an analysis by CoreLogic. Two of Grenada’s outer islands, Carriacou and Petite Martinique, “were completely devastated,” Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell reiterated Tuesday.
Leaders across the Caribbean were still tallying the financial toll wrought by the earliest Atlantic storm on record to intensify to the maximum Category 5 level, after it left a trail of destruction on Jamaica and islands of the eastern Caribbean.
“There is no doubt this disaster will have a major impact on Grenada’s economic situation,” Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell told a briefing on Tuesday. “We are talking hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild.”
Grenada’s Carriacou and Petite Martinique islands face “almost complete devastation,” he added, saying people who lost their homes were particularly vulnerable to the elements.
Mitchell emphasized the need to rebuild structures resistant to storms, noting many of the country’s wood houses are not insured as severe weather becomes more frequent due to record sea temperatures, which scientists say is due to fossil fuel-driven climate change.
A team of insurers is set to arrive on Wednesday and the government plans to announce fiscal measures by early next week.
St. Lucia posted early estimates of close to $2 million from damages including buildings, sea moss harvests and banana plantations.
Rainfall and debris hindered assessments in Jamaica, whose agriculture sector initially reported over $6 million in damages.
CARICOM chair Mohammed Ali said many long-term crops were lost and farmers would face issues for years to come in a “heart-breaking” initial assessment for agriculture.
As a result, debt-saddled Caribbean economies may become more reliant on agricultural imports that are subject to inflation they do not control.
Despite producing few emissions, Caribbean nations are among the world’s most vulnerable to climate change, which is heating the oceans and increasing the frequency and intensity of severe storms.
The region has long-called for more action from top-polluting wealthy nations, such as honoring their climate pledges and considering debt relief, but climate-related financing and loans have funneled billions back to rich countries.
Agencies