Hurricane Zeta claims to reach $4.4 billion

The insured loss to onshore properties from Hurricane Zeta will be close to $4.4 billion, according to modelling firm KCC. This includes $4.3 billion wind and storm surge losses in the US and $80m wind losses in Mexico.

Zeta made two landfalls: in the Yucatan Peninsula on 24 October as a Category 1 hurricane, and in the US on 28 October as a Category 2 hurricane.

The estimate includes the privately insured wind and storm surge damage to residential, commercial, and industrial properties and automobiles. It does not include NFIP losses or losses to offshore assets.

Meanwhile, another catastrophe modelling agency, AIR Worldwide, has estimated that industry insured losses to onshore property resulting from Hurricane Zeta’s winds and storm surge will range from $1.5 billion to $3.5 billion. 

According to AIR, at landfall, Zeta was a high-end Category 2 storm with one-minute sustained wind speeds of 110 mph—just 1 mph shy of a Category 3, which would have classified it as a major hurricane.

Zeta was the 27th named storm of the season—tying the record for number of named storms in the Atlantic, set in 2005—and the 11th to make landfall in the United States, breaking the previous record for the number of US- landfalling named storms set in 1916.

As the fifth named storm to make landfall in Louisiana this season, it also broke the record for the number of named storms to make landfall in Louisiana in one season set in 2002.