The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Bahamian insurers yesterday estimated that total insured losses from Hurricane Matthew “could exceed $400 million”, with individual underwriters bracing to receive claims volumes that reach into the thousands.

Emmanuel Komolafe, the Bahamas Insurance Association’s (BIA) chairman, pledged that the sector was “working around the clock” to adjudicate/settle claims and payout the monies due to storm-ravaged clients.

Confirming that payouts would be made “as soon as possible”, Mr Komolafe said the sector’s existing $400 million estimate for insured losses was an initial figure that was likely to change over the next few days.

Insurance industry sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Tribune Business that the total insured loss estimate was likely to move upwards, rather than down.

However, taking the property and casualty insurance sector’s initial $400 million estimate, and combining this with Prime Minister Perry Christie’s suggestion that Matthew’s impact for the Government is three-four times’ that of Hurricane Joaquin’s $100 million, indicates that the Bahamas has suffered a near-$1 billion blow in terms of damages. This figure becomes even more realistic when uninsured losses, and economic loss from tourism cancellations etc, is factored in.

“The islands impacted by Hurricane Matthew account for a very significant portion of the Bahamas’ population and economic activity,” Mr Komolafe said in statement yesterday.

“Hence, while it is still too early to provide a definitive figure that accurately quantifies the cost of the damage caused by Hurricane Matthew, we expect that insured losses could be in excess of $400 million.”

In a subsequent interview with Tribune Business, he added: “Of course, that number will change in the days and weeks ahead. We’ll have to see.”

Mr Komolafe said the $400 million estimate, which would make Matthew comfortably the largest-ever single loss event for the Bahamian insurance industry, “has a lot to do with the islands impacted”.

“A lot of economic activity is generated in those islands, New Providence and Grand Bahama, and we have a lot of concentration of insurance risk on those islands,” he said.

“That explains why we expect a significant amount of insured losses as a result of Hurricane Matthew.”

Property and casualty underwriters, and insurance broker/agent intermediaries, had been open over the holiday weekend - some since Saturday - to receive and process claims from storm-ravaged clients.

“We’re working around the clock to make sure this is done as soon as possible,” Mr Komolafe told Tribune Business.

“It’s our priority, our objective, to make sure claims are adjudicated and payments made as soon as possible. That’s our focus; to return clients to a state of normalcy regarding their property.”

Based on the level of devastation Matthew has left in its wake, Mr Komolafe said individual underwriters - Bahamas First, RoyalStar Assurance, Insurance Company of the Bahamas (ICB), Summit Insurance, Security & General and NAGICO (Bahamas) - were bracing for “a significant number of claims”.

Timothy Ingraham, Summit Insurance Company’s president, told Tribune Business that the carrier had already received hundreds of claims over the holiday weekend, and saw a greater influx yesterday.

“We’re already in the hundreds in the first few days, so it would not surprise me if we approached 1,000 claims between all the islands,” Mr Ingraham told Tribune Business.

Insurance Management, which places most of its general insurance business with Summit, opened its Freeport office on Friday, just hours after the storm passed over Grand Bahama. The company’s Nassau head office was also open throughout the weekend to receive claims.

“Up to Monday morning, we’d seen a couple hundred claims come through the door of both locations combined,” Mr Ingraham said.

“We’ve seen them come in today, the first business day since it happened, and there’s a lot more coming through the door.

“We have our adjusters in the field already, looking at claims, speaking with clients, taking pictures and helping people through the process.”

The Summit chief expressed concern, though, that many homeowners, particularly those without mortgage obligations, may have elected to drop catastrophe (hurricane) coverage, thereby exposing them to either significant financial or property loss.

“With the economy obviously having been difficult in the last few years, a lot of people who did not need insurance, because they did not have a mortgage, may have opted to go without it,” Mr Ingraham explained to Tribune Business.

“It would not surprise me if many of the affected homeowners opted to go without it, or opted for insurance without catastrophe coverage.

“It’s difficult to say how many until we get numbers from the Government on how many houses were affected compared to the number of claims we have received.”

Homeowners in this position may find themselves having to fall back on the Government and its National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) for assistance, thereby becoming a burden on the state.

Mr Ingraham said claims payouts to impacted clients were expected “to begin in the next couple of days, if they have not started already; in the next two to three days for sure”.

With businesses just opening and starting to assess hurricane damage, Mr Ingraham said Summit and other underwriters would “have a pretty fair idea of where the numbers are going, and what we’re looking at”, by the week’s end.

“It’s certainly the most impactful event in recent memory,” he added of Matthew. “I don’t recall an event where Nassau and Freeport were both affected to the extent they were.

“Our goal is to get the clients the money they are entitled to as quickly as possible, so they can get their lives and homes back together.”