Giant property-casualty insurer Allstate Corp., with operations and brokers throughout Connecticut, says that severe weather drove up catastrophe losses to $2 billion so far in the second quarter, The Associated Press reports.
That tops a recent quarterly high set in 2008, when Hurricanes Ike and Gustav drove up that year’s third-quarter catastrophe losses to $1.8 billion. The company reported $4.7 billion in losses as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the third quarter of 2005.
The home and auto insurer said that its pretax losses for May were about $600 million as a result of seven weather-related events. That’s in addition to the $1.4 billion in catastrophe losses the company previously announced for April, as a result of tornadoes that ripped through the South. The second quarter ends June 30.
Allstate announced last month that it would begin releasing updates on catastrophe losses whenever a monthly estimate exceeds $150 million. Over the last decade, the company said that level of loss has occurred about a third of the time.
