Florida insurers battled back early Thursday as Hurricane Milton made landfall late Wednesday, after the stocks booked significant declines earlier this week. Meanwhile, several larger national insurers also appeared to be rebounding Thursday. Analysts estimated the hurricane could result in around $60 billion-$100 billion in insured losses.
Heritage Insurance surged around 8% during Thursday's early market action, while American Coastal Insurance rallied more than 5%. Fellow Florida-based insurers Universal Insurance and HCI Group rose 8.7% and 3.8%, respectively.
Ahead of Thursday's market open, HRTG dropped 20.8% on the week while ACIC fell 16.3%. UVE was down more than 19% on the week while HCI declined 13.7%. All of those stocks booked significant drops on Monday after Milton swelled to become one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record. The hurricane's winds eased to Category 3 as the storm made landfall Wednesday evening, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Meanwhile, national insurers Progressive and Allstate staged more modest early advances.
Hurricane Milton: Insurance Stocks Chubb, Everest Rocked As Storm Gathers
Hurricane Losses Should Be 'Manageable'
Bank of America raised its price target on Progressive to 319, up from 309, and maintained a buy rating on the shares Thursday. The firm wrote that Q3 catastrophe losses should be "manageable" for property and casualty insurers. Analysts have modeled "placeholder" Q4 losses for Hurricane Milton.
Hurricane Milton hit Florida as what the National Weather Service in Tampa Bay described as a "historic storm for the west coast of Florida." Maximum sustained winds were estimated at 120 mph. Milton weakened to a Category 1 hurricane as it moved off Florida's east coast early Thursday.
Tampa Bay dodged a direct hit, and was spared the bulk of the storm surge many had feared would flood the busy port area. Damage assessment was still in early stages, but a more direct hit could have led to much higher levels of catastrophic damage to coastal communities centered around the major city.
Hurricane Milton: Stock Market Overbought?
Hurricane Milton grew into a Category 5 storm earlier in the week as it headed toward Florida just days after Hurricane Helene ripped through the Southeastern U.S. Potential for massive Milton damage was forecast. Generac, which tends to swing higher during natural disasters as people and agencies rush to purchase generators, was Monday's IBD Stock Of The Day.
Generac stock fell 3% during morning trade on Thursday, after earlier advancing into a buy zone above a 169.57 buy point, according to MarketSurge charts.
GNRC is up 7.6% on the week, adding to a 9% gain the prior week, lifted by Hurricane Helene. Generac stock is now up 8.4% in October, with a more than 30% gain so far this year.
Tampa Bay-based Mosaic jumped 5% Thursday after declining 4% on Monday as the storm strengthened to a Category 5.
Home Depot and Lowe's, two other stocks that tend to see a market impact from natural disasters, each traded about 1.5% lower as the market opened Thursday — giving back their prior gain for the week.
Early reports from the New York Times counted four dead in the wake of this latest storm. "The storm was significant, but thankfully, this was not the worst case scenario," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday morning.
More than 3.3 million customers in Florida were without power early Thursday, according to PowerOutage.us.
Please follow Kit Norton on X @KitNorton for more coverage.
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