Damage from Hurricane Beryl may cost insurers $2.7 billion in US, KCC says

(Reuters) – Insurers in the United States may take a hit of about $2.7 billion from damage caused by Hurricane Beryl, catastrophe modeling company Karen Clark & Co (KCC) said on Thursday.

About 1.5 million customers remained without power in Texas on Wednesday, two days after Beryl raked the state as progress to restore electricity was slow, hampering efforts to quickly restart critical oil infrastructure.

The storm made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday near the coastal town of Matagorda, about 100 miles (160 km) from Houston, lashing Texas with heavy winds that knocked down power lines and damaged property.

The U.S. estimate includes the privately insured damage to residential, commercial, and industrial properties and automobiles, as well as business interruption, KCC said in a report.

It does not include boats, offshore properties, or National Flood Insurance Program losses.

KCC also said privately insured losses would be close to $510 million in the Caribbean and $90 million in Mexico.

The path of Hurricane Beryl stretches from the Windward Islands in the Caribbean to the Texas Gulf Coast.

Reinsurance broker Gallagher Re estimated that U.S. economic losses from Beryl would be at least $1 billion. Weather forecasting firm AccuWeather issued a preliminary estimate of $28 billion to $32 billion in damage and economic loss.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K)