A $165 billion high-range estimate of losses from PFAS litigation isn’t the only number about cost burdens that casualty actuaries heard at the CAS Seminar on Reinsurance in June.

Related article: PFAS by the Numbers: $165B Ground-Up* Litigation Losses Possible

Frank Demento, senior vice president and claims manager at TransRe, also offered these figures from studies of health cost burden:

• A 2019 report published by the Nordic Council of Ministers estimated that the total health impact cost from PFAS exposure for just the European economic area is between 52 billion and 84 billion euros.
• A 2022 study led by NYU Grossman School of Medicine estimated the annual disease burden and associated economic costs of PFAS exposure in the United States at $5.5 billion to $63 billion. That study attributed the highest costs to PFAS-related adult obesity, at $17 billion annually.
• A 2024 study from the Endocrine Society found disease burden costs related to PFAS and plastics in the U.S. was $250 billion in 2018 alone—”$22 billion due to PFAS exposure which is associated with kidney failure and gestational diabetes,” according to the report.

Demento also mentioned a recent Columbia University study that found that the amount of microplastics in three popular brands of bottled water is 10- to 100-times higher than previously thought.

What do plastics have to do with PFAS?

In an email, Demento noted that PFAS and microplastics are not synonymous, but that PFAS can occur as microplastics, citing an article written by two environmental engineers for Water Online. (Cook, C., Steinle-Darling, E. “The Microplastics and PFAS Connection.” Water Online. April 2021.)

“Not only can some PFAS occur as microplastics such as polyvinyl fluoride (PVF) and polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE), it is also used as a coating on synthetic textiles and plastic components that then break down to fiber- or particle-based macro-, meso-, or microplastics. Moreover, non-PFAS microplastics can involve PFAS at certain stages in their production process, for example polyvinyl chloride (PVC),” the article states.

During his presentation, Demento also offered these documented estimates for PFAS water treatment and cleanup.

• A 2022 Bluefield research analysis estimates that total annual expenditure for PFAS drinking water treatment systems will begin at $334.6 million in 2022 and go to 1.1 billion in 2030.
• In 2020, the U.S. GAO estimated that it will cost over $3.2 billion for cleanup costs related to PFAS contamination just for Department of Defense installations and properties.
• The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021) specifically earmarks $10 billion of government funds to address PFAS and other water contaminants

On the topic of litigation, in the March 2024 article, “Why Insurers Should Develop Strategies for Estimating PFAS Loss Reserves,” InsurTech Praedicat reported that its mass tort litigation tracker has recorded:

• More than 10,000 PFAS complaints
• 418 companies named across 152 industries
• $17 billion in settlements negotiated