All Hail the Data

A report from the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) has revealed that insurance claims resulting from hailstorm damage in the United States increased by a whopping 84 percent from 2010 to 2012.

In 2010, there were 467,602 hail damage claims filed, but by 2012 that number had jumped to 861,597.

All told, over two million hail damage claims were processed from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2012, the NICB said.

Perhaps not surprisingly the top five states generating hail damage claims during this period were Texas (320,823); Missouri (138,857); Kansas (126,490); Colorado (118,118) and Oklahoma (114,168).

“Personal Property Homeowners” (PPHO) was the policy type most affected by hail loss claims, with 1.3 million, or 64 percent of the total number of hail loss claims between 2010 and 2012.

On average, PPHO policies were represented more than twice as often as the next most popular policy type, personal automobile.

NICB points out that most of the hail loss claims occurred in the spring and summer months, between March and July, likely due to increased numbers of thunderstorms during this period.

So far, large hail reports posted to NOAA’s National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center site in 2013 appear to show that hailstorm activity is down from 2012. See below:

While the NICB report focuses just on hail claims, it’s worth adding that severe thunderstorms in the U.S., including tornadoes, resulted in $14.9 billion in insured losses in 2012, more than $25 billion in insured losses in 2011, and $9.5 billion in insured losses in 2010, according to Munich Re.

In the first-half of 2013, insured losses from thunderstorm events exceeded $6 billion, Munich Re said.