INSURED LIGHTNING-CAUSED PROPERTY DAMAGE IN 3 WESTERN STATES

Insurance claims resulting from lightning damage in Colorado, Utah, an d Wyoming were analyzed during the period from 1987 to 1993. Most clai ms were from personal accounts, while some were commercial. Lightning damage in the three states resulted in an annual average of 6755 claim s being filed. Most claims were from Colorado, and more than half were from the Denver metropolitan area. Over $7 million a year in lightnin g losses occurred in the three states for these types of insurance pol icies when a $150 deductible was included; most losses were in Colorad o. The average value paid per claim was $916 for all three states and types of claims; commercial claims averaged $1369, and personal claims averaged $873. One lightning insurance claim was estimated to occur i n the three-stare region for every 55 cloud-to-ground lightning flashe s recorded by detection networks. Nearly all lightning claims were fro m May through September. The largest number of claims were from counti es with the largest populations. However, the claim rate per populatio n and the dollar loss per claim were not well related to county popula tion. A rate of 4.7 claims per 10 000 people applied for Colorado, 1.4 for Utah, and 3.9 for Wyoming. Annual U.S. totals of 307 000 claims a nd $332 million in losses were extrapolated on the basis of population in the three stales. The dataset for Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming had 367 times as many claims as similarly insurable damage reports in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Data during th e same years. This publication is widely used as the basis for lightni ng and other storm-related casualty and damage information. The result s suggest that Storm Data greatly underestimates lightning damage.