Winter Storm Fern

Industry Loss Estimate | Summary
Posting Date: February 3, 2026, 12:00:00 PM

Verisk has modeled the impacts of Winter Storm Fern with our updated U.S. Winter Storm model (to be released in June). Based on our initial analysis, we estimate that insured industry losses to property and auto due to freeze, wind, and snow could reach USD 4 billion. Freeze is expected to be the largest driver of insured losses among the modeled perils.

Meteorological Summary

Winter Storm Fern impacted much of the Midwest, Northeast, South, Tennessee Valley, and Mid-Atlantic states from January 23rd-26th. This storm brought heavy snow, freezing rain, and sleet to parts of far northern Alabama, the northern half of Georgia, far northern and western Louisiana, the northern half of Mississippi, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Oklahoma. Freezing rain led to significant power outages over parts of Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia. The most significant icing up to 1" fell from eastern Texas into northern Louisiana and Mississippi as well as portions of Tennessee and Kentucky. The anomalously cold temperatures combined with extended power outages will drive significant claims due to burst pipes.

Significant amounts of snow also fell in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Illinois. Snowfall totals have exceeded one foot in parts of Illinois, Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. The aforementioned anomalously cold temperatures have also been impacting these states, hindering repair efforts.

In addition, there was severe thunderstorm activity over far southern Alabama and southern Georgia within the warm sector of this storm which brought damaging wind gusts in excess of 60 mph and small hail. These storms also spawned a handful of tornado touchdowns in southern Alabama. This system fully moved out of these areas by the afternoon of January 26th. 

Modeling Considerations

This was an unusually intense winter storm event, driven by the mixing of warm, moist air from the subtropics with extremely cold air from the Arctic. Predicting losses for this event is made more challenging both by the diverse perils across different regions as well as by ongoing power outages in the interior Southeast that have hindered recovery and that are continuing to exacerbate damage due to extended cold temperatures. The updated Verisk U.S. Winter Storm Model - to be released in June – captures these impacts.    The new model explicitly accounts for freezing rain and its downstream impacts on loss. Additionally, the model will explicitly capture the vulnerability of the U.S. power interconnections and potential for outages across the U.S., along with their knock-on effects on damage and loss. Both of these updates make the simulation of storms like Fern and their primary loss drivers more realistic and robust in the soon-to-be-released model.

Our initial assessment of this event using Verisk's updated winter storm model indicates industry insured losses could reach USD 4 billion, and that fourteen states in an unbroken line from Texas to Massachusetts have the potential to exceed $50 million in losses each. Based on this estimate, Fern would be the third costliest winter storm in the U.S. on record, following only Elliott (2022) and Uri (2021).

Verisk’s Winter Storm modeling teams are continuing to study this event and may provide additional information as the aftermath continues to develop. However, no additional ALERT postings are currently scheduled for this event.  Please contact your Verisk representative with any questions.

Industry Loss Estimate | Downloads
Posting Date: February 3, 2026, 12:00:00 PM

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