Hurricane Isaias, which killed four people and left hundreds of thousands without power across the Southeast over the weekend, is the first real test of Florida’s troubled home insurance market since Hurricane Milton struck in October 2024.
After briefly reaching Category 3 strength on Friday, Isaias made landfall near Destin, Florida, as a Category 2 hurricane that night, bringing heavy rain and powerful winds to the Panhandle before moving north. The storm downed trees and power lines and killed four people, two in Escambia County, Florida, and two in Alabama.
It was the first Atlantic hurricane of the season and the first to strike the continental U.S. since Milton battered Florida in 2024. That storm, which made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane, caused an estimated $34.3 billion in damage in the U.S. This was “almost exclusively in Florida,” according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information…