Damage caused by Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica will cost insurance companies between $1 billion and $3 billion, according to property intelligence company Quotiti.
Insured losses are a fraction of the total property loss, estimated at $2 billion to $5 billion, although much uncertainty remains amid limited observations of the disaster. Other estimates of total economic losses put it at $8 billion, or about 35% of the island’s gross domestic product.
Melissa made landfall near New Hope, Jamaica on Tuesday as a Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of 185 mph (298 km/h), becoming the strongest hurricane on record to hit the island. It later moved towards Haiti, Cuba and Bermuda, killing around 50 people in the Caribbean, according to Agence France-Presse.
Although Katulieti estimated that 25% of Jamaica’s population lived in parishes that were exposed to hurricane-force winds, the population around the capital city of Kingston avoided a direct hit.
Still, the storm severely damaged at least 40% of buildings and roads in the Montego Bay tourist center and much of the western part of the country, according to a Bloomberg analysis of satellite data processed by Singapore’s Earth Observatory.
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