Catastrophe Losses Riddle Second-Quarter Results.

This year's second quarter may be one of the worst ever for catastrophe losses, some property/casualty industry watchers say. Insurers aren't speculating on what--if any--impact the quarter's storms will have on premium rates, while analysts say any impact on rates will likely be muted and variable by state.

Tropical Storm Allison, which drenched parts of eastern Texas, Louisiana and other states with as much as 32 inches of rain in early June is expected to cost insurers at least $1.2 billion-$1 billion of that in Texas alone, according to the Insurance Services Office Inc.'s Property Claim Services unit.

April storms that lashed 16 states from Texas to Pennsylvania added another $1.7 billion in insured losses, ISO said. On top of that, June hailstorms in North Dakota and other upper Midwest states and in Colorado added $415 million to the total.

ISO estimates $4.4 billion in insured catastrophe losses for the quarter altogether.

"It was a bad one," said Jay Cohen, an analyst with Merrill Lynch Global Securities, of the second quarter.

"There was no really huge single catastrophe. Tropical Storm Allison was by far the biggest, but people look at it and say, it's not even a hurricane."

Cohen said it isn't easy to compare the impact of the most recent quarter's catastrophic events with 1992's Hurricane Andrew (third quarter) or the 1994 Northridge earthquake in California (first quarter), because the industry prefers to compare quarters with their peers--all second quarters are compared with one another. "Weather patterns and related catastrophes tend to be similar in the same seasons," he said. "Historically, the third quarter, of course, tends to be the most severe, as hurricane season is at its height."