The 2022 Atlantic hurricane season produced 14 named storms, eight of which reached hurricane status. Two named storms became major hurricanes, including Hurricane Ian, which made landfall as a Category 4 storm with a 150 mph winds. In addition to Ian, Hurricanes Fiona and Nicole both struck the US mainland as Category 1 storms.
The most active seasons to date is still 2020 with 30 named storms, 14 hurricanes, and seven major hurricanes.
These numbers fall just short of predictions for the 2022 hurricane season, but the impact in Florida and Puerto Rico was severe. The current cost of Hurricane Ian is nearly Example link text $113 billion in damages .
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts that the cost of hurricane damage will rise significantly in the next several decades, largely because of climate change and real estate development along the nation’s coasts.
Total spend on hurricane damage is expected to rise nearly 40 percent, to $39 billion dollars per year. Perhaps even more troubling, though, is that the number of people who are “substantially” affected by hurricane damage is projected to increase by more than 700 percent in that same timeframe, from 1.2 million to 10 million people.
| Yearly Hurricane Impact | Today | In 2075 |
|---|---|---|
| Total spend | $28 billion | $39 billion |
| Federal spend | $18 billion | $24 billion |
| People “substantially affected” | 1.2 million | 10 million |
The CBO’s predictions of increasing hurricane costs ring true to anyone who’s paid attention to storms in the last few years. Four of the five most expensive storms in US history have happened since 2012, and all five have happened since 2005.
| Hurricane | Cost | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Katrina | 2005 | $161 billion |
| Harvey | 2017 | $125 billion |
| Maria | 2017 | $90 billion |
| Sandy | 2012 | $70 billion |
| Irma | 2017 | $50 billion |
Today, the state of Florida experiences more than half of the country’s hurricane damage, as measured by cost. Texas is the second most impacted state, with 13 percent of the country’s spend, followed by Louisiana, with nine percent.
The top 10 states account for 94 percent of the country’s spend on hurricane damage.
One reason Americans care so much about getting hurricane updates and staying ahead of big storms is that they’re hoping to prevent flood damage, which can be expensive. A typical homeowners insurance policy doesn’t cover the damage associated with hurricane-related floods (that is, it doesn’t cover damage from water that comes from outside your home).
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) tracks average payouts it makes by month. For the period between June 2017 and May 2018, those averages ranged from $11,015 (for May 2018) to a whopping $113,016 (for August 2017, when Hurricanes Harvey and Irma hit).
Regularly check this NOAA map of hurricane activity in the Atlantic. It’s updated several times per day to reflect the latest known information about developing tropical storms, tropical depressions, cyclones, hurricanes, and other storms.
If your home is damaged by a hurricane, your standard homeowners insurance may not cover all the damage. Typical homeowners policies:
Ever heard that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? It’s a cliché, but it’s highly applicable to hurricane preparation. Your best bet at minimizing the damage a hurricane can cause is to prepare in two ways:
Even the best preparation can’t prevent all hurricane damage. If your home is hit, you’ll want to start the recovery process as soon as possible.
To get an idea of how Kin handles hurricane recovery, read about our strategy post-Irma, where we used texts to communicate with our customers and drones to snap photos of damage so we could start the claims process before many people had returned from evacuation.
Please see our list of Hurricane Ian Assistance resources.
If you have flood damage after a hurricane and you have a flood insurance policy, you’ll have to submit a claim to your insurance company to get the funds you need to repair or rebuild. Here’s a guide to handling the flood claims process. The most important takeaway: start the process sooner rather than later to ensure you’re able to get the compensation you need to recover.
When the storm has passed, you’ll likely want to get your life back to normal as soon as possible. But keep in mind that full recovery may take some time, especially if the damage is severe or widespread. To make sure you don’t put yourself or your family at risk, be sure you follow these safety guidelines:
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