Los Angeles fire damage likely to be costliest blaze in US History
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Los Angeles wildfires are set to be the costliest blaze in U.S. history, analysts said Thursday, as the first initial estimates of damage from the infernos soared with their unchecked spread.
Total economic losses from the fires are now pegged at close to $50 billion, double the estimate of a day earlier, according to JPMorgan analyst Jimmy Bhullar. That includes insured losses which he estimated at more than $20 billion and “even more if the fires are not controlled." Other initial estimates of the fire’s economic toll also placed the disaster as among the nation’s most expensive. Ratings firm Morningstar DBRS estimated total insured losses of more than $8 billion.
The final tally of insurance losses from natural disasters can vary markedly from initial estimates, particularly for forecasts made while events are still unfolding. Analysts and others work out potential costs in part by comparing the number and average value of properties destroyed to previous fires. The 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California’s Butte County, the nation’s most destructive wildfire through last year, inflicted insured losses of around $12.5 billion, adjusted for inflation, according to broker Aon.
Hurricanes and earthquakes produce the biggest losses among different types of catastrophes. The costliest ever was 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, which amounted to $102 billion in insured losses, adjusted for inflation, according to Aon data provided to the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group. Hurricane Ian in 2022 was second with $56 billion and Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami was third with $48 billion.
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