RLI Sees Up to $75 Million in Catastrophe Losses from Hawaiian Wildfires in Q3

Property and casualty insurer RLI Corp said on Wednesday it expects to record pretax net catastrophe losses of between $65 million and $75 million from Hawaiian wildfires in the third quarter of 2023.

Wildfires earlier this month on Hawaii’s Maui, killed hundreds of people, forced tens of thousands of residents and tourists to evacuate the island and devastated the historic resort city of Lahaina.

The fires became the deadliest natural disaster in the state’s history, surpassing that of a tsunami that killed 61 people on the Big Island of Hawaii in 1960, a year after Hawaii joined the United States.

The catastrophe risk modeling business of Moody’s on Tuesday said that it estimates the economic loss from the Hawaiian wildfires to be in the range of $4 billion to $6 billion.

The range, which is net of reinsurance recoverables and includes reinstatement premiums, is based on the impact to about 200 structures where RLI provided primarily homeowners insurance, the company said in a statement.

(Reporting by Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)