March storms cause $3.5 billion in damage
Seven severe US convective storm events impacted nearly every part of the country during March, according to the new Global Catastrophe Report from Impact Forecasting, Aon Benfield's catastrophe model development team.
The report evaluates the impact of the natural disaster events that occurred worldwide during March 2016. It found that there were more than 1,000 individual reports of tornadoes, damaging straight-line winds and hail were recorded by the US-based Storm Prediction Center.
The Insurance Council of Texas estimated insured losses for the state alone at above $1.1 billion, following more than 125,000 home and auto claim filings over several weeks.
Overall economic losses sustained to property, infrastructure and agriculture across the US from the convective storm and flood damage were anticipated to approach $3.5 billion, while insured losses incurred by public and private insurance entities were tentatively estimated at $2.0 billion.
