Media Advisory
Contact:  Sam Miller or Gary Landry at 850-386-6668

August 23, 2007

Friday, Aug. 24 marks the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew, the last Category 5 hurricane to hit Florida.

While the relatively calm 2006 hurricane season may have given many Florida residents "hurricane amnesia", environmentalists, loss prevention and mitigation advocates, and insurance companies are among those who must remember our past.

But even more important, we must use the occasion of this anniversary as an important reminder to look forward so we can plan intelligently for the future.  As you compile news reports about the anniversary of Andrew, the Florida Insurance Council and our member companies ask members of the media to consider the following facts:

• Hurricane Andrew resulted in $22.7 billion in insured losses, in today's dollars (in Florida and Louisiana).

• Those losses are computed against 680,239 claims.

• With the unprecedented growth in Florida, a repeat of Hurricane Andrew today would cause an estimated $42 billion in insured losses.

• 10 insurers in Florida and one in Louisiana became insolvent after Andrew.

• A grand jury investigation reported that in many instances the building code in Dade County, while the strongest in the nation, had not been enforced.

• Andrew occurred during ebb in hurricane frequency, unlike the period we are in today.

• The lessons of Andrew were quickly forgotten in the years after the storm and the enactment of insurance reforms. 

Coastal development soared and property insurance was easily available and affordable. Building codes in south Florida, thankfully, were more rigorously enforced, but weak ones remained in place in other parts of the state. 

• The four storms of 2004 reminded everyone that the risks of catastrophic damage remained high and the price of insurance did not adequately reelect that risk.

• Florida' population has increased from about 13 million in 1992 to more than 17 million today*that's more than 25 percent over the past 15 years.

• While Florida has enjoyed an explosive building boom since Andrew, that also means more property is at risk for hurricane damage, especially in the most vulnerable coastal areas where homes are often torn down and replaced with even higher value residences.

Forecasters have continued to stress that we are in the middle of a violent weather cycle; more powerful storms are expected over the next decade.