WITH just over a month remaining before the start of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, a local real estate expert is urging homeowners and commercial property owners across Jamaica and the wider Caribbean to reassess their insurance coverage to ensure it reflects current rebuilding costs.

According to Allison Morgan, CEO of VM Property Services Limited, many insurance policies are based on outdated property valuations, leaving properties underinsured and vulnerable to financial loss in the event of a storm or disaster.

“Too many policies are still based on valuations that no longer reflect the true cost of rebuilding,” a company release quotes Morgan. “With inflation, construction cost increases, and ongoing supply chain delays, replacement values have gone up across the region. If your property isn’t properly valued, your insurance coverage may fall short when you need it most.”

Morgan stressed the importance of understanding the difference between market value and replacement value. While market value represents a property’s sale price, replacement value reflects the actual cost of rebuilding — an essential factor when it comes to insurance coverage.

“Insurance providers calculate risk and set policy limits based on accurate replacement values — not what the market says your property is worth,” Morgan explained. “If you haven’t had a formal valuation done in the last few years, now is the time.”

VM Property Services said it recommends that property owners review their insurance coverage annually and conduct formal property valuations every two to three years to remain adequately protected.

“Once the first storm warning is issued, it’s often too late to make adjustments,” Morgan warned. “We’re encouraging all property owners to take action now to safeguard their investments.”

On April 3, Colorado State University forecasters predicted that the upcoming 2025 hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30, will be above average, with 17 named tropical storms and including nine hurricanes, of which four are predicted to be major.

Warm sea surface temperatures will again fuel the storms in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean, the researchers said in a statement, adding that activity will be about 125 per cent above the average for tropical storms between 1991 and 2020. The 2024 hurricane season saw tropical storm activity at 130 per cent above the average for those years.

There have been an average of 3.2 major hurricanes with sustained winds of over 111 miles per hour (179 kph), and 7.2 hurricanes out of 14.4 named tropical storms also formed between between 1991 and 2020.

AccuWeather, which issued its 2025 hurricane season forecast in late March, predicted between three and five major hurricanes out of seven to 10 hurricanes from 13-18 named tropical storms.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issues its hurricane outlook in May.

The 2024 hurricane season was one of the costliest on record. There were five major hurricanes, out of a total of 11 hurricanes from 18 named storms.

The deaths of 427 people were attributed to 2024’s storms, and losses totalled US$130 billion.

Earlier this month the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced that the destructive and deadly hurricanes Beryl, Helene and Milton, which rampaged through the Atlantic, and John in the eastern Pacific last year, are names no longer available to christen future storms.

Instead, the names Brianna, Holly, and Miguel have been added to the list of possibilities for future storms in the Atlantic, while Jake was added for the eastern Pacific roster.

By giving hurricanes and cyclones human names, the WMO believes it is easier to warn populations about a storm’s potential dangers.

Names are assigned in alphabetical order, alternating between feminine and masculine names that are short and easy to pronounce.

“The names are repeated every six years, unless a storm is so deadly that its name is retired,” the WMO explained in a statement.

In 2024, “Hurricane Beryl was the earliest Atlantic basin Category 5 hurricane on record, with major impacts in the Caribbean,” it said.

“Hurricanes Helene and Milton caused catastrophic damage in the United States. Hurricane John triggered deadly and extended flooding in the Mexican state of Guerrero.”

Climate change has affected the severity and frequency of such storms, scientists warn.

Tropical cyclones — the term for hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons — feed on moisture in the air and draw their energy from the heat of the water.

“The proportion of intense tropical cyclones (categories 4-5) is expected to increase at the global scale with increasing global warming,” the WMO said in 2022, a message reiterated many times since.

Rising sea surface temperatures are fuelling more powerful and frequent storms.

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season was the ninth-consecutive season with above-average activity, with 18 storms intense enough to be named.

Five storms developed into major hurricanes of categories 3 to 5 on the Saffir Simpson scale with winds of 178 kilometres (111 miles) per hour or more, according to the NOAA.