The Risks of Hazard

Here we are in the dog days of summer, and because we can’t just write about wildfires every week it’s time for the Top 3 posts from Q2.

As the US gets ready for the Thanksgiving holiday, it’s sobering to think of the wildfires that are burning in the country’s southeast. After months of weather that has been way warmer and dryer than usual, there are several fires burning throughout Kentucky, the Carolinas, Georgia and (worst of all) Tennessee.

Imagine for a moment that your home has been damaged, and you and your family need to move out for a few months while it’s repaired. The more you think of it, the more the extra expenses add up – rent, extra groceries because you have a smaller fridge, extra commuting costs, and on and on. Luckily there is insurance for this: loss of use.

On AM Best’s online TV channel, there is an interesting story featuring Philadelphia Insurance Company’s joint effort with the Arbor Day Foundation to plant 80,000 trees in an area of Texas that has been devastated by wildfire. (Click here to watch the full video.) I sent the link to my friend Chris White, of Anchor Point in Boulder (creators of the No-HARM model for wildfire risk) to get his perspective on the initiative through the lens of wildfire risk.

Have you heard it’s raining in California? Los Angeles has broken precipitation records for July, and there have been flash floods throughout southern California and Arizona. The Angels even had a ball game rained out for the first time in over 20 years. The moisture has helped with the drought and a bad wildfire season, but it has added to the headaches of property insurers writing in California. Weather from the west coast is regularly newsworthy, but this past week has been extraordinary. How weird has it been? It even snowed in the Sierra Nevada this week.