Hurricane Dorian made landfall on the eastern end of Grand Bahama Island late in the evening of Sept. 1 and continues to threaten the southeastern coast of the U.S.
Dorian will continue to pound Grand Bahama Island through much of Sept. 2 and will move "dangerously close" to the Florida east coast the night of Sept. 2 through the evening of Sept. 4.
"Dorian is expected to remain a powerful hurricane during the next couple of days," the National Hurricane Center said.
Storm surge and hurricane watches and warnings are in effect for Florida's Atlantic coast, including a hurricane warning from Jupiter Inlet to the Brevard/Volusia county line. As of 5 a.m. ET, Dorian was 40 miles east of Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, with maximum sustained winds near 165 mph, slower than when it made landfall.
Dorian is moving west at just 1 mph, and is anticipated to bring up to 30 inches of rain on the northwestern Bahamas through late in the week of Sept. 2.
Up to 6 inches of rain is expected in the central Bahamas and the Atlantic coast from the Florida peninsula through Georgia. Up to 15 inches of rain is seen for the coastal Carolinas. The NHC warned that rainfall may cause life-threatening flash floods.
The Georgia and South Carolina state governments have ordered mandatory evacuations in coastal areas because of the hurricane, according to media reports.
Analysts at UBS upgraded their forecast for potential industry insured losses from Dorian to between $5 billion and $40 billion, and their base case projection to $25 billion. They said that with the storm appearing to track further south, insurers and reinsurers were exposed to higher insured property values.
They added that the reinsurance industry has roughly $30 billion of excess capital at present, but that natural catastrophe losses of around $70 billion for full year 2019 could erode that capacity.
"A material insured loss for Dorian could consolidate a nascent re-pricing theme," they wrote. "That said, we remain somewhat cautious on the emergence of [a] broad-based 'hard' market, with industry appetite for growth still strong in our view."
