Hurricane Zeta Louisiana Damages Estimated To Hit $2.8B; State Farm Claims Reach 3,000

Advocate, The (Baton Rouge, LA)

Nov. 2--Insurance industry analysts estimate storm damage from Hurricane Zeta in Louisiana could cost between $1.7 billion and $2.8 billion in repairs.

Analytics business CoreLogic estimated that when storm damage in Mississippi and Alabama are factored in Hurricane Zeta caused $3.5 billion in destruction.

That includes both residential and commercial losses for wind and storm surge but does not include any losses reported to the National Flood Insurance Program for homeowners.

Hurricane Zeta was the fifth named storm to make landfall and broke the record for the number of named storms during one season dating back to 2002.

Hurricane Zeta made landfall near Cocodrie in Terrebonne Parish before barreling through New Orleans last week as a Category 2 hurricane with wind gusts up to 110 miles per hour, which is just shy of a Category 3 hurricane.

At its peak, more than 480,200 customers of Entergy were without electricity while the utility crews work to restore power. By comparison, after Hurricane Laura, Entergy had more than 616,000 customers without power and $1.7 billion in damage to its infrastructure.

Zeta was the third hurricane to make landfall in Louisiana after Laura and Delta hit near Lake Charles several weeks ago. Hurricane Laura brought between $8 billion and $12 billion in damages, while Hurricane Delta was estimated to cause between $700 million and $1.2 billion in damages.

Likewise, AIR Worldwide, another catastrophic risk modeling company estimated Hurricane Zeta's damage to range between $1.5 billion to $3.5 billion.

State Farm is the largest homeowners insurance company in Louisiana when ranked by market share, it had about 278,000 policies this hurricane season.

In Louisiana, State Farm had 3,070 homeowner claims and 690 auto claims across the state about a week after the storm.

There were 15,830 homeowner claims with State Farm when all the states impacted by the storm are combined: Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama.

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