Lahaina fire (Maui, 2023)

On August 8, 2023, a brush fire spreads into the town of Lahaina, on the island of Maui, driven by gusts from a hurricane that passed far to the south. The fire destroys more than 2,200 buildings, kills 102 people and razes the island's historic capital in a few hours. Insured losses, in the range of three to four billion dollars, fall on an already small Hawaiian market. The case has two sides for reinsurance. The first is the loss itself: a wildland-urban interface fire that razes a town in a few hours, like Paradise in California in 2018. The second is recourse. Investigations implicated Hawaiian Electric power lines, including a line that had fallen that morning and the absence of preventive shut-off, and insurers brought subrogation actions to recover what they had paid. In August 2024, a global settlement of about four billion dollars was announced between plaintiffs, the company, its insurers and other defendants. For the market, the case recalls the PG&E logic in California: a utility held responsible for a fire can become insolvent or see its rating collapse, which affects recoveries, and insurers have had to reason in terms of the accumulation of the fire and the recourse.