CCP Virus Pandemic Cost Insurers $44 Billion, 3rd Largest In History

COVID-19 was declared to be the third largest cost to insurance companies of any catastrophe in history after Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 attacks, with losses of up to $44 billion, according to the insurance broker Howden, in a Jan. 4 report on reinsurance renewals. This amount is lower than the initial 2020 projections of $100 billion-plus for COVID-19 insured losses. It seems increasingly improbable that the new Omicron variant will have anything more than a mild effect on the economy. Industry analysts in the early days of the pandemic came up with the larger estimate after governments across the world instituted lockdown mandates and event cancellations. COVID-19 claims since then have been excluded from many insurance policies. “There’s only so much event cancellation coverage out there, there’s only so much civil action coverage out there, and when you get to $40 billion, that’s pretty much exhausting what was underwritten,” said …  » Read full article