As the third-costliest weather disaster in the world, Hurricane Ian was the deadliest hurricane to impact the state of Florida since 1935.

Causing widespread damage, the coverage Floridians posted across all social media platforms caused the country to sit down in shock as they watched families escape their homes, people kayak across large highways, and dogs run to rooftops. The catastrophic damage cost an estimated $113 billion. 

The Biden-Harris Administration responded to Florida's recovery with federal grants, disaster loans, and flood insurance payments. Still, this recovery took a whole government approach with assistance from the U.S. Small Business Administration, Business Recovery Centers, and The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. As of January 2023, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) has paid up to 2.2. billion in claims for just Hurricane Ian alone across five states. 

When they had initially estimated the financial cost of Hurricane Ian back in November, FEMA didn't know that NFIP's losses would reach anywhere from $3.5 billion to 5.3 billion by the start of the new year as claims continued to flow in. As of October, the NFIP had only received over 25,000 claims. With the rise to 46,000 claims, with most of them in advanced payments, FEMA expects their initial estimates to be redefined as more data and information comes in. 

FEMA recently transferred $502.5 million of flood risk to the private reinsurance market for a premium of $90.2 million and $1.9275 billion to the private sector effective for the year, with 18 private reinsurers to cover above $7 billion of NFIP's losses.

“FEMA remains committed to reinsurance as a risk transfer measure to ensure the NFIP has the capacity to pay claims, especially now with the growing intensity and frequency of weather patterns brought on by climate change.”

David Maurstad – FEMA's senior executive of NFIP

Source: Reinsurance: https://www.reinsurancene.ws/fema-shrinks-nfip-reinsurance-program-by-over-50-amid-hard-market/, FEMA: https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20221107/biden-harris-administration-delivers-over-2-billion-federal-support