Cost of back-to-back hurricanes now exceeds $4B in Florida

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The financial wreckage caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton has now exceeded $4 billion in Florida alone, according to the Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR).

The OIR website that tracks Catastrophic Claims Data and Reporting shows the mounting estimated cost of the back-to-back storms that slammed the state within two weeks of each other has now climbed to $4.285 billion combined. OIR uses the Insurance Regulation Filing System to compile estimates and dollar costs for lost property and other factors.

As of Oct. 25, there have been 247,432 total insurance claims filed in Florida for damage caused by Hurricane Milton, which slammed the state initially on the west coast on Oct. 9 and exited the peninsula into the Atlantic Ocean on Oct. 10. Those claims add up to an estimated total insurance loss in Florida of $2.848 billion thus far.

There have been 198,338 residential property claims so far in the state for Milton, amounting to a total of $2.37 billion in damage. Another 8,569 commercial property damage claims have been filed in the state, which accounts for $229.17 million in damages from Milton.

Hurricane Helene, which plowed into Florida’s Big Bend area on Sept. 26, caused slightly less damage so far compared to Milton. The OIR report states that there was a total estimated insured losses of $1.44 billion caused by Helene.

But Helene prompted about one-fourth the number of residential property claims in Florida than Milton before Helene moved north and wreaked havoc in Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee. There were 57,415 total residential property insurance claims in Florida attributed to Helene, according to OIR, amounting to $529.32 million in estimated damage as of Oct. 25. Commercial property claims attributed to that storm now amount to 3,310 filings in Florida for a total of an estimated $77.59 million in damages.

Beyond the insurance claim reports, the damage by both storms on the Florida employment picture was extreme.

First-time unemployment claims for the week ending Oct. 19, the week after Hurricane Milton, saw the biggest weekly increase this year, and the total number of initial jobless claims was the highest this year. There were 10,574 initial unemployment filings for the week ending Oct. 19, the highest number of single-week claims this year before seasonal adjustments, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced. That’s up by 4,275 claims from the week ending Oct. 12.

Hurricane Milton appears to have hit jobs in Florida harder than Hurricane Helene, which slammed the Gulf Coast Sept. 26. That week saw 9,377 initial unemployment claims, at the time the highest number of filings this year. That was up 3,842 claims over the previous week.