Huge increase in hurricane claims
According to the US Travel Insurance Association (USTiA), travel insurance companies saw a 40-per-cent increase in hurricane-related claims last year compared with 2016. The year saw 17 named storms and 10 hurricanes, and on ‘certain high-volume days’ travel insurance carriers handled over double their normal call volume and processed over five times the averagae number of hurricane-related claims.
Insurance companies, said USTiA, ‘worked to increase their own capacity and make the process more efficient for affected travellers’: “Companies initiated ‘all hands on deck’ and set up streamlined claim processing systems to handle claims as quickly as possible.”
With extreme weather events likely to become more rather than less common, these 2017 events could just be the tip of the iceberg.