Insurance claims in Florida after Hurricane Ian now up to 375,000

The number of insurance claims linked to Hurricane Ian reached 375,293 on Thursday, with estimated insured losses of about $3.28 billion, according to data posted on the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation website.

The numbers of claims and estimates of insured losses are expected to continue steadily climbing as residents and businesses assess damage from the Category 4 hurricane, which made landfall last week in Southwest Florida and continued across the state.

The totals Thursday were up from 335,741 claims and $2.8 billion in estimated losses Wednesday. Of Thursday’s totals, 273,939 of the claims involved residential property, with other claims for such things as auto damage. The date showed 7,758 claims had been closed with payments made, while 11,400 had been closed without payments.

In related news, Florida Gulf Coast University this week launched a relief fund to help students and employees. The university’s main campus is in Fort Myers, which was among the areas hardest hit by Ian.

University President Mike Martin, who is set to retire near the end of the year, announced the “Eagles in Need” fund in a video address Thursday. “To say that we’ve been through a hard time because of Hurricane Ian would be an understatement. But we are bouncing back. The campus is in good shape, and we will be restarting classes,” Martin said in the video.

Classes are set to resume Monday at the university, which has 16,000 students and 2,500 employees. A university spokeswoman told The News Service of Florida that officials are still doing assessments of off-campus facilities, but the main campus was minimally impacted by the storm.

The university’s Vester Marine and Environmental Science Research Field Station in Bonita Springs was damaged. The facility “is an important base of operations for studies of Southwest Florida’s coastal and watershed habitats,” according to its website.

In a social-media post this week, the university said the hurricane will cause 10 days of missed classes. “To make up this loss, we will use weekends, predominantly Saturdays, to hold classes,” the school said in a Facebook post Tuesday. The post said the university will offer “flexible options” for classes including pass-fail grading and opportunities for online attendance and instruction.

Renee Fargason, a spokeswoman for the state university system’s Board of Governors, said FGCU was the “hardest hit” school in the system. New College of Florida in Sarasota, Florida Polytechnic University in Lakeland and the University of South Florida in Tampa were among the schools that reported things such as downed trees and debris on campuses. All of those schools had power and water restored as of Wednesday, Fargason said.