Insurers Brace for ‘Above Normal’ Hurricane Season, Less Data for Forecasts (AM BestTV)

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OLDWICK - JUNE 16, 2020 03:52 PM (EDT)
In this episode of AM BestTV, Tom Varney, ARC regional manager, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty, and Marla Schwartz Pourrabbani, national catastrophe specialist, Swiss Re, discuss the 2020 hurricane season, saying that with commercial flights grounded due to the pandemic, forecasters will have less data for predictions. Click on http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=hurricaneseason620 to view the entire program.

Pourrabbani said the 2020 North Atlantic hurricane season, which runs through November, will be “above normal.”

“It looks like there will be 14-18 tropical storms, and of these, seven to nine will reach hurricane speeds, with two to four being categorized as major hurricanes,” added Varney.

Varney said spoke about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the 2020 hurricane season.

“The impact of COVID-19 will affect the forecasting of those storms. Since much of our forecasting comes from airline flights around the globe and there have been less of them, this will affect the data that is usually collected. With less data, there is the possibility of improper forecasting.”

Still, Pourrabbani said the insurance industry is prepared to deal with a major hurricane season in the middle of a pandemic.

“I do believe insurers are well-capitalized. Insurers have very complex, state-of-the-art models that allow them to have any accurate view of hurricane risk in not only the North Atlantic, but globally.”

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AM BestTV covers exclusive AM Best and insurance industry information and reports, targeted topics and key developments in the insurance, reinsurance and related sectors daily. Sign up for alerts of episodes at www.ambest.com/multimedia/ambtvsignup.html . View AM BestTV episodes at www.ambest.tv .

AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specializing in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in New York, London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City.