State Farm, Farmers Expect $94 Million in Fire Claims.

Damage claims resulting from wildfires this spring and summer in New Mexico and Colorado could reach $93.7 million for State Farm and Farmers Insurance, two of the largest homeowners multiple peril insurers in those states.

The fire that struck Los Alamos, N.M., in May is projected to result in 3,000 homeowners' claims totaling $75 million for State Farm, spokesman Dick Luedke said. Another fire near Denver in June is projected to generate 500 claims totaling $6 million, Luedke said. State Farm, Bloomington, Ill., is the top writer of homeowners multiple peril in both states, with 28.3% of the market in New Mexico and 26.8% in Colorado, according to A.M. Best Co. data.

Los Angeles-based Farmers, which is the second-largest writer of homeowners in Colorado with 18.3% of the market, reported 148 wildfire-related claims in that state, spokeswoman Kitty Miller said. In New Mexico, Farmers has 876 claims, 845 of which are homeowners, totaling $12.7 million.

Projecting total wildfire-related damages for a state is difficult for insurers, because not all claims are reported to the national office, Miller said. The number or value of claims must reach particular levels before they are reported.

Ongoing wildfires sweeping across 10 states may be leading the United States toward the worst wildfire damage since 1988, when a total of 7.4 million acres were consumed. Only 2.3 million acres had been burned by Aug. 2 that year, compared with 3.6 million this year, according to statistics from the National Interagency Fire Center.

States battling fires in August included Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. There were a total of 82 fires blazing across more than 900,000 acres.