THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 6, 1996 TAG: 9611060359
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM SHEAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 60 lines
The 1996 hurricane season ends next week with property insurers still tallying their losses from Hurricane Fran.
After coming ashore near Wrightsville Beach, N.C., on Sept. 6, the storm caused more than $1.6 billion of damage to insured property in the Carolinas, Virginia and a half-dozen other states, according to insurance industry estimates.
That amount doesn't match the record $15.5 billion of damage wrought by Hurricane Andrew four years ago. Still, it's enough for Fran to make the industry's list of the 10 costliest U.S. catastrophes.
In addition, losses from Fran could spur more property insurers to scale back their coverage in coastal areas like Hampton Roads.
In October, Nationwide Insurance said it was limiting the sale of new homeowners' and commercial insurance policies in coastal regions fromMaine to Texas, including Hampton Roads.
Two other large insurers, State Farm and Allstate, took steps earlier this year to reduce their exposure to hurricane losses in Hampton Roads and other regions vulnerable to hurricanes.
With $1.27 billion of storm-related losses, North Carolina suffered the bulk of the damages inflicted by Hurricane Fran, according to Property Claims Services, a company that tracks insurance claims. In Virginia, the insured damages from Fran have reached $175 million.
Nationwide said Fran probably will be the company's most costly natural disaster. To date, Nationwide has paid $157 million on 63,00 claims. That could surpass $200 million, said Lou Fabro, a spokesman for the Columbus, Ohio-based insurer.
Nationwide, the largest property insurer in North Carolina, said claims in that state have accounted for the bulk of its losses from Fran: $149.2 million from 55,000 claims. In Virginia, the company has paid $4.6 million on 4,900 claims, Fabro said.
Nationwide has yet to settle 3,200 other claims from Fran, and new ones are still coming in, he said.
State Farm, another major insurer of autos and homes, said it paid $150 million on claims filed so far in North Carolina. To date, the company has received 49,000 homeowners' claims and 10,000 claims on auto losses, said Mary Beth Cramer, a State Farm spokeswoman.
``We will have lot of activity in North Carolina with people working on claims,'' she said.
In Virginia, State Farm has paid more than $5 million on 3,000 claims. State Farm opened an office in Richmond to handle claims in Virginia, and it's likely to remain open several more weeks, Cramer said.
Another major property insurer, Allstate, said it has processed 48,157 claims for damages from Fran, but it has not disclosed a dollar amount. The storm has generated 39,004 claims in North Carolina and another 4,992 in Virginia, an Allstate spokesman said. ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC
TEN MOST-COSTLY INSURED U.S. CATASTROPHES
Source: Insurance Information Institute
[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]
KEYWORDS: INSURANCE HURRICANES STATISTICS CATASTROPHES by CNB