Although Beryl was still a tropical storm on Sunday, late day National Hurricane Center advisories put it on track to make landfall on the middle Texas coast early Monday, possibly regaining strength as a hurricane overnight.

The storm made landfall near Matagorda, Texas as a Category 1 on Monday morning at about 4 a.m. local time.

But even before hurricane warnings and watches were being issued for Texas, Beryl’s first strike on the Caribbean prompted an early warning statement from a rating agency. And the path of the storm through Grenada, Jamaica and up through Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula had representatives from one risk modeler tallying up records being broken already in the 2024 hurricane season. Another delivered an early estimate of insurable damage—so far less than $2 billion.

In a blog item posted on July 3, “Major Hurricane Beryl Breaks Records As It Impacts The Caribbean,” members of the Moody’s RMS Event Response team documented the trajectory from the formation of the tropical storm on June 29, noting that Beryl rapidly intensified from a tropical depression to a Category 4, weakening for a time to a Category 3 but then making landfall over Grenada’s Carriacou Island as a Category 5 on the morning of July 1.

“At landfall, Beryl had maximum sustained wind speeds of 150 miles per hour (240 kilometers per hour) and a central pressure of 950 hPa [950 mb]. This makes Beryl the strongest hurricane on record to impact the southernmost Caribbean Windward Islands.”

“We were not kept waiting long for a tropical system to take full advantage of the hurricane-promoting conditions on offer, with a major hurricane just four weeks into the season,” wrote Sarah Hartley and James Cosgrove of Moody’s RMS Event Response.

John McGlynn, a senior financial analyst at AM Best, offered his initial take on the insurance impact on July 3 also. “A hurricane of this magnitude early in the hurricane season would act as a warning sign for the industry as it braces for the rest of the hurricane season,” he stated.

“The largest impact to results in 2024 may end up being the cost associated with purchasing third- or fourth-event reinsurance reinstatement cover,” he said, noting that while insurance companies do not always purchase this cover, “a severe storm so early in the season may require protection from additional CAT events at what is likely to be premium prices.”

Two days later, after Beryl had advanced through Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, officially making another landfall in Mexico as a Category 2 hurricane early on Friday morning, July 5, CoreLogic’s Hazard HQ Command Central put out late day estimates of total insurable losses: between $400 million and $700 million for Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, and less than $1 billion in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula are also less than $1 billion.

The estimated losses include wind-only damage to residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural properties, including damage to contents and business interruption, CoreLogic said.

“While it’s unfortunate that a part of Jamaica experienced the devastating winds of Hurricane Beryl, it is lucky the storm stayed just far enough south of Kingston and merely brushed against Jamaica, its strong winds avoiding the most populated areas,” said Jon Schneyer, CoreLogic’s director of catastrophe response. “A more northward shift could have caused a stronger storm surge and wind event in the more developed areas of Kingston, like what happened in 1988 with Hurricane Gilbert.”

Still, both Moody’s RMS and CoreLogic pointed out that Beryl is already a record-setting storm in many respects, with both firms noting that Hurricane Beryl is the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record to occur in the North Atlantic Basin.

“Hurricane Beryl is the third-earliest ever major Atlantic hurricane, and the earliest ever Category 5. Since 2000, only two years have had early-July major hurricanes, 2005 and 2008. Given that 2005 ultimately saw seven major hurricanes, with four of them Category 5s—including the only other one in July (Emily), as well as Katrina, Rita, and Wilma—and that 2008 saw five major hurricanes, there is every indication this is an intense hurricane season likely to break more records,” said Robert Muir-Wood, chief research officer, Moody’s Insurance Solutions.

According to Moody’s RMS, Beryl has already achieved these additional North Atlantic Basin records:

• Easternmost hurricane to form in June
• First tropical cyclone to undergo rapid intensification in the main development region in June
• Earliest rapid intensification from a tropical depression to a major hurricane
• Strongest hurricane in June
• Earliest Category 4 hurricane
• Southernmost Category 4 hurricane

At CoreLogic, Chief Scientist Dr. Howard Botts commented: “This is the sort of behavior we would expect to see in late August or early September during the peak of hurricane season. To see a major tropical cyclone east of the Caribbean in late June is almost unheard of.”

“A Category 5 hurricane in early July has never been recorded,” continued Botts. “Is this a new normal? Possibly, and it shows that pre-season outlooks are likely correct, and this will be an incredibly active hurricane season.”

Discussing Beryl possible impacts to Caribbean domestic insurers, McGlynn at AM Best noted that earnings hits for these primary carriers may be more severe than for storms in prior years. The Caribbean domestic carriers “have been faced with challenging reinsurance conditions in recent years as the reinsurance industry has re-evaluated the capacity it extends to the region.”

“While the losses to the reinsurance industry are likely to be within risk appetite and contained in their earnings, cost pressures in higher frequency excess reinsurance layers have driven some carriers to increase retentions modestly,” he said.

McGlynn went on to observe that higher costs of reinstatement covers may turn out to be the biggest impact of Beryl for insurers.

Global reinsurers largely reduced their capacity in the Caribbean beginning in 2023 and the market remains tight, he said, noting that reinsurers “view with presence in the Caribbean as opportunistic rather that mandatory.” The capacity reductions were driven by “a combination of a higher frequency of non-modeled events in the U.S. and Europe [and] high interest rates providing alternative investment opportunities.” For European reinsurance carriers, in particular, a strong dollar, also drove reinsurance carriers to reduce the capacity they extend to the Caribbean.

“Some of the capacity gap is being filed with reinsurers new to the region; however, they may carry lower ratings and therefore negatively impact the capital requirements for primary carriers,” McGlynn said.

Still, AM Best also noted that many property owners in the Caribbean may be underinsured or uninsured. “Insurable risks across the Caribbean…have increased dramatically over the past decade due to additional property development, greater car ownership and inflation raising the repair and replacement costs of these assets. However, the total values insured have not grown proportionally with the increase in exposure in many jurisdictions,” the rating agency noted.

Anticipating the prospect that Beryl could hit Texas with some force, AM Best also provided market share data on lines of business generally impacted in hurricanes. The AM Best data shows that State Farm and Allstate cover the largest share of homeowners insurance in the state. State Farm and Progressive are the top two insurers for private passenger auto in the Lone Star state.