Disaster

As much of Florida is left flooded and without power from this weekend's hurricane, the damage across much of the Caribbean goes well beyond water damage and downed power lines with many describing the devastation left by Irma as "end-of-the-world times."  As one resident of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands told the Washington Post, "it was beyond rough times, it was end-of-the-world times...everything normal to us has been destroyed."

After tumbling last week on concerns that between damage from Harvey and Irma, losses for the P&C space would be devastating, today the broader insurer space is breathing a sigh of relief after the Hurricane's damage reportedly underwhelmed, especially following some especially dire observations over the weekend from the likes of Torsten Jeworrek, member of the board of the German reinsurance giant Munich Re, who on Sunday said that Hurricane Irma is proving to be a “major event” for Florida and the insurance industry.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Almost lost in all the dollar estimates of property damage is the human loss, suffering and stress.

I am not an expert in repairing flood damage, or in dealing with insurance companies, FEMA or all the other pieces that will go into homeowners getting the funding needed to repair or rebuild their homes.

Update (8:00am ET): As it travels over the Florida Panhandle, Irma has been downgraded to a tropical storm. Yet it continues to produce some wind gusts that are near hurricane force.

Tropical Storm #Irma Advisory 49A: Now available on the NHC website. https://t.co/VqHn0uj6EM

— NHC Atlantic Ops (@NHC_Atlantic) September 11, 2017

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In the opening monologue of his talk show, Real Time Host Bill Maher suggested that disaster victims in Florida and Texas somehow don’t deserve the $15 billion in federal aid money being allocated for the cleanup efforts after Hurricane Harvey – and now Hurricane Irma – devastated their states and forced millions from their homes.