Irma Claims Top $4.5B

Oct. 09--More than 21,000 Southwest Florida property owners have filed insurance claims for damages from Hurricane Irma.

Home and business owners statewide have claimed $4.57 billion in insured losses so far from Irma, which barrelled into Florida four weeks ago.

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation said 703,671 holders of residential and commercial properties had submitted claims to insurers as of the end of last week.

But insurers have already turned down 69,432 claims, or about 10 percent of the total filed. They have paid nearly 104,000.

The number of claims and dollar value of losses will continue to rise as more property owners assess their damages from Irma.

Fitch Ratings says the estimated insured losses for the industry could run from $25 billion to $50 billion. Data analyzer CoreLogic said total damages could reach $65 billion.

Irma left a mess but caused less property damage than expected after it skirted Florida's east coast, its originally projected landfall, and hit the Florida Keys and Marco Island before tracking up the center of the state.

The state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. alone projects $1.23 billion in claims from about 70,000 policyholders.

In Sarasota County, 8,725 property owners had filed claims in the latest OIR report. Some 1,090 have have been paid, and another 1,148 were closed without payment.

Manatee County reported 6,748 claims, with 1,032 paid and 816 closed with no payment.

A total of 5,838 claims came from Charlotte County, with 696 paid and 631 closed without payment.

The three counties account for about 3 percent of the Florida claims filed with insurers, OIR reported.

The statewide data show 84 percent of the claims involve single-family homes, condos, mobile homes and other residential properties.

Miami-Dade reported the most claims at 87,334, followed by Orange County at 57,670, Broward County at 56,977 and Lee County at 52,821.

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