AIR Estimates Hurricane Zeta Insured Losses at Up to $3.5 Billion

Catastrophe risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide estimates that insured losses to onshore property resulting from Hurricane Zeta's wind and storm surge will range from $1.5 billion to $3.5 billion.

Hurricane Zeta made landfall at 4 p.m. on October 28 near Cocodrie, Louisiana, about 80 miles south of New Orleans. It then moved northeastward, tracking directly over New Orleans before moving through Mississippi and Alabama, where it weakened to a tropical storm. Remnants of the storm then continued across Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia.

AIR said that at landfall Zeta was a high-end Category 2 storm with 1-minute sustained wind speeds of 110 mph, just a mile below Category 3 major hurricane status. Hurricane Zeta was the season's 27th named storm, tying the record for the number of named storms in the Atlantic set in 2005. It was also the 11th named storm to make landfall in the United States this season, breaking a record set in 1916.

Zeta also set an additional record as the fifth named storm to make landfall in Louisiana this season, breaking the previous record set in 2002.

Zeta made landfall 3 weeks after Hurricane Delta and about 9 weeks after Hurricane Laura, coming ashore 150 miles east of those two earlier storms.