Hurricane Katrina - The Five Year Anniversary

Hurricane Katrina was the costliest hurricane, as well as one of the deadliest, in U.S. history.

The storm formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005 and crossed southern Florida soon thereafter as a Category 1 hurricane before strengthening rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico. Katrina made its second U.S. landfall as a Category 3 storm on the morning of August 29, 2005 in southeast Louisiana. Between 1,300 and 1,500 people lost their lives as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
Five years later, Hurricane Katrina remains the largest single loss event in the history of the global insurance industry, causing an estimated $41.1 billion in insured damage ($45.1 billion in 2009 dollars) and 1.7 million claims across six states.
Louisiana and Mississippi were the hardest-hit states.
This number does not include $16.1 billion in losses from flooding insured by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), or the $2 billion to $3 billion of insured damages to offshore energy facilities.
Damage from Hurricane Katrina shattered the previous record for a natural catastrophe event set in 1992, when Hurricane Andrew caused $15.5 billion in insured losses at the time it occurred ($22.2 billion in 2009 dollars), with 790,000 claims in three states