A hurricane damage insurance claim used to be a relatively rare incident in the U.S., but the last several years have seen one severe storm after another cause significant backlogs of claims.

Even though Hurricane Dorian didn’t make a direct hit onto land in Florida, the strong, massive storm system did at least $10 million in property damage to Florida’s eastern coastal areas.

Florida Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier expressed the ongoing pressure insurance companies are feeling because thousands of claims received after October 2018’s Hurricane Michael remain open.

Hurricane Michael was a Category 5 hurricane when it hit Florida on Oct. 10, ultimately causing nearly $7 billion in damages.

According to WUSF News, Altmaier presented a report to the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee on Tuesday, Sept. 17. He said of the 148,347 claims that had been received due to damage from Hurricane Michael, 18,211 claims are still open even though insurance companies had made at least one payment to more than half those claims that were then reopened.

Some of those open claims remain open because some property owners sign their benefits over to contractors who are doing the repairs to the property. This keeps the property owners from being out of pocket the costs to make the repairs and removes the property owner as the middleman between the person performing the work and the insurance payment.

Still other claims take a long time to settle because an insurance adjuster has to inspect the property to determine whether the claimed damage was caused by wind or by water. Insurance companies also successfully lobbied for a change in the assignment of benefits after finding that some unscrupulous policyholders turned in damage from unrelated issues such as broken pipes that had nothing to do with hurricane damage.

Altmaier also said that even though more than 22,000 insurance claims have been submitted in Florida after Hurricane Dorian, he expects most of the damage to be less monetarily than the deductibles, which means the insurance companies will make fewer payouts than seen in other storms.

Altmaier became Florida Insurance Commissioner in April 2016 by appointment through the Financial Services Commission. He leads the Office of Insurance Regulation, overseeing one of the biggest insurance markets in the world. He was elected vice president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners earlier this year.

Hurricane Damage Insurance Claim May Take Longer to Process

Due to the backlog of claims, insurance companies may need longer to process claims related to the estimated $25 billion in losses from Hurricane Dorian.

In addition to Florida, several other states on the eastern U.S. coast suffered damage as did the Canadian provinces such as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. In addition, the Grand Bahamas Island was virtually wiped off the map because the storm stalled over the island with unrelenting winds, rain and storm surge.

International financial services company U.B.S. originally thought damage would cause a financial hit between $5 and $40 billion, then estimated $15 billion. As the storm continued to impact land masses, U.B.S. finally predicted $25 billion in total damages, according to Business Insider.

On Sunday, Sept. 22, 2019, the National Hurricane Center identified the 11^th named storm of the hurricane season. Tropical Storm Karen, located near the Windward Islands, formed with 40 mph winds Sunday. Its current path would take it to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands by Tuesday.