Moody’s RMS Event Response estimates insured losses from Hurricane Melissa to range between US$3 billion and US$5 billion

Estimate reflects hurricane wind and flood impacts in Jamaica, including post-event loss amplification and additional non-modeled sources of loss.

NEWARK, CA: November 6, 2025 – Moody’s RMS™ Event Response estimates private market insured losses from Hurricane Melissa to be between US$3 billion and US$5 billion, with a best estimate of US$3.5 billion. This estimate represents insured losses associated primarily with wind impacts in Jamaica, the island hardest hit by the Category 5 hurricane. Insured losses for other impacted Caribbean islands, including the Bahamas, Haiti, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, are expected to be minimal.

Economic losses in Jamaica from the event could potentially exceed the island’s GDP, which was approximately US$20 billion in 2024. 

*losses rounded to the nearest billion

This loss estimate reflects property damage and business interruption to residential, commercial, industrial, and automobile lines of business, considers post-event loss amplification (PLA), including potential super-cat impacts due to widespread infrastructure damage to roads, power networks, etc., as well as non-modeled losses from extended business interruption and precipitation-induced flooding.

The estimate does not include losses for any government or sovereign protection programs covering Jamaica (Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development cat bond, and National Disaster policies) resulting from this event, which include both traditional (re)insurance and insurance-linked securities.

Modeled losses are based on an analysis of ensemble footprints in Moody’s RMS Version 25 North Atlantic Hurricane Models. The ensemble footprints are reconstructions of Melissa’s hazard that capture the uncertainty surrounding observed winds. The private market loss estimates are based on the 2025 Moody’s RMS Caribbean Hurricane industry exposure database. The hazard footprint reconstructions and corresponding loss estimate were developed and validated using public and private data sources, including wind station observations, web reconnaissance, analysis of high-resolution aerial imagery, and Moody’s HWind real-time data products.

Insured losses from Melissa will be driven by wind damage with a minor contribution from precipitation-induced flooding and storm surge. Insured wind losses will be predominantly for commercial lines, including hotels, resorts, commercial multi-family dwellings, and high-rise buildings severely affected in this event, with a significant portion of loss attributed to business interruption coverages.

Jeff Waters, Director - North Atlantic Hurricane Models, Moody’s, commented: “Hurricane Melissa was truly a generational event for Jamaica and will be the storm that defined the 2025 North Atlantic hurricane season. While the capital city of Kingston was largely spared from damaging winds, many other towns were devastated by a combination of catastrophic winds and widespread inland flooding. Being an island, repairs and recovery will inevitably go through significant supply chain challenges, even as several key ports on the island remain operational. For these reasons, we expect recovery efforts to take several months, if not years.”

Raj Vojjala, Managing Director, Modeling and Analytics, Moody’s, said, “In collaboration with local (re)insurers, several field reconnaissance surveys highlighted a dichotomy in Jamaica’s building stock between the insured and uninsured. Most insured buildings are well-built, traditionally designed for seismic risk with concrete or reinforced masonry structures, which are also resilient to high winds. In contrast, uninsured residential buildings largely exhibit less stringent build quality or enforcement of wind design provisions, due in part to a lack of major hurricane landfalls since Gilbert in 1988. As a result, as Melissa’s catastrophic winds tracked across the island, immense damage was caused to several communities.”

Insurance penetration in Jamaica varies by line of business. Hotels stand out with near-total coverage and strong limits, reflecting their importance to the island’s tourism-driven economy. While take-up rates for other commercial lines are also high, as most businesses have some insurance coverage, there could be significant underinsurance due to inadequate limits.

In contrast, personal lines take-up is quite uneven, with very low coverage for single-family dwellings, particularly outside affluent neighborhoods in urban areas. Due to the protection gap, we expect many households and businesses to be vulnerable to severe financial and social disruption from Melissa’s impacts.

Hurricane Melissa was the thirteenth named storm and the fourth major hurricane of the 2025 North Atlantic hurricane season. Melissa made landfall as a Category 5 major hurricane near New Hope, St. Elizabeth Parish in southwestern Jamaica on Tuesday, October 28. At landfall, Melissa had maximum sustained winds of 185 miles per hour (295 kilometers per hour) and a central pressure of 892 hPa.

In terms of the North Atlantic Basin, Melissa is one of the most powerful hurricane landfalls on record: it ties with Dorian (2019) as the strongest recorded landfalling hurricane (185 miles per hour; 295 kilometers per hour) and ties for the most intense landfalling hurricane on record (892 hPa) with the Labor Day Hurricane (1935).

For Jamaica, Melissa is the strongest and most intense hurricane to make landfall on the island since recordkeeping began in 1851. It surpasses Hurricane Gilbert, which made landfall in Jamaica as a high-end Category 3 major hurricane in September 1988. With this landfall, Melissa becomes the first Category 4 or 5 major hurricane to make landfall on the island on record.

The system brought catastrophic hurricane-force winds, damaging storm surge, heavy rainfall, flash flooding, and landslides to western Jamaica. After crossing Jamaica, Melissa went on to make landfall as a Category 3 major hurricane near the city of Chivirico, Santiago de Cuba Province, Cuba, and then crossed the central and southeastern Bahamas as a Category 1 and 2 hurricane on Wednesday, October 29.

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The technology and data used in providing this information are based on the scientific data, mathematical and empirical models, and encoded experience of scientists and specialists. As with any model of physical systems, particularly those with low frequencies of occurrence and potentially high-severity outcomes, the actual losses from catastrophic events may differ from the results of simulation analyses. 

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