Hurricane Helene (2024)

On the evening of September 26, 2024, Helene makes landfall in Florida's Big Bend, near Perry, as a Category 4 storm. The Florida side saw the expected storm surge on a thinly populated coast. Most of the loss happened several hundred kilometers away, in the mountains of North Carolina, where rain that was already heavy before the storm arrived pushed the Swannanoa and the French Broad over their banks. Asheville, Chimney Rock and whole valleys were cut off for days. The death toll exceeds 200, the deadliest hurricane on the US mainland since Katrina. For insurance, the figure that matters is the gap. Economic losses run into the tens of billions of dollars, in the order of 80 billion according to public estimates; the insured loss sits around 10 to 15 billion. The reason lies in the American homeowners contract: it excludes flood, which falls to the federal NFIP or to a separate private policy. Purchase is mandatory only for a federally backed mortgage in a designated zone, the 100-year floodplain on FEMA maps. Outside those zones, in mountain valleys thought to be safe, the take-up rate was tiny. Reinsurers mostly saw the Florida wind and a limited share of the flooding, absorbed under retentions raised since Ian. Milton arrived two weeks later on the same west coast. Not to be confused with Milton itself, whose heavier insured loss came from wind and tornadoes across a densely insured Florida.