Residential Wind Loss Mitigation Case Study: An Analysis of Insurance Claim Data for Hurricane Michael

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

• It is suggested that you use the case of Puerto Rico, Hurricane Maria, the costliest extreme phenomenon in the USA.

• In H3a: Consider the Vulnerability of the type of housing in the south of the USA (wooden constructions)

• FEMA response, since FEMA does not advance recovery funds, the government entity must do the work and request reimbursement, and this is very complicated for small governments.

• Table 1 incomplete

Author Response

Thank you for your time and consideration in reviewing this article. We have made changes accordingly. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript conducted a linear regression analysis on insurance claim data for 11-county area in the Florida following the landfall of Hurricane "Michael." On the basis of the analyses, a number of conclusions have been drawn. Some major suggestions are as follows:

1. This manuscript primarily focused on a single hurricane event, which may limit the experimental aspect of model development. It could be beneficial to include examples from multiple hurricanes, where applicable.

 

2. The data collected from citizens may introduce uncertainties in terms of data volume and accuracy. Additionally, relying predominantly on linear regression in data analysis could introduce some degree of randomness. Is there a more effective mathematical approach for further analysis?

 

3. It's essential to address the limitations and validity concerns outlined in the article. The uncontrollable nature of hurricanes, the complexity of data variables, and the numerous uncertain factors between hurricanes and variables should be detailed and categorized in the research.

 

4. There's a shortage of figures in the manuscript. Consider including additional visuals to effectively convey the results.

Author Response

Thank you for your time and consideration in reviewing this article. We have made changes accordingly, per the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have no further comments

Author Response

Reviewer 2 states that, "I have no further comments." All other considerations have been taken into account. Thus, I am resubmitting the same version of the manuscript as last time.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Please let me know if I need to revise anything else.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Taking the Hurricane Michael disaster as an example, this paper analyzes the impact of building design variables on residential storm damage claims loss. Meanwhile, the hurricane claims data also provides an excellent basis for understanding the local housing inventory. However, in my opinion, it is incomprehensive for this paper to predict the predicted value of building design variables correctly based on Hurricane Michael alone. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Some references in this review are formatted incorrectly and need to be corrected

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study analyzes insurance claim data from an 11-county area in Florida Panhandle following the landfall of 

 

Hurricane Michael. Linear regression was used to study the influence of building design variables on percent claim 

 

loss.

 

Unfortunately the study cannot be accepted as a research article due to the following reasons.

This study does not provide a detailed analysis and conclusions which improve the existing knowledge.

 

Authors should clearly state what is the new contribution from this study and the importance of the results in 

 

hurricane loss studies.

 

A hurricane can be category 5 when it makes landfall. But its energy and wind speed will dissipate as time 

 

progresses. Past research shows that wind speed at the location of property is a better indicator of losses, 

 

rather than the category of storm itself. Authors limit their discussions to Category 5 hurricanes. Study is 

 

incomplete without considering all intensities of hurricane.

 

Similar studies were done in the past. There is no validation and verification with past studies. There is no new 

 

observation compared to past studies. More discussions on quantitative research is missing.

 

Authors should present other popular analysis techniques to compare the results.

 

Authors should stick to technical writing standards and avoid discussions which are irrelevant to the study. 

 

Discussions about the provider of data, hurricane track and data privacy may be reduced.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In this manuscript, the authors have investigated insurance claim data from an 11-county area in the Florida Panhandle 8 following the landfall of Hurricane Michael. The study is interesting, although the unique contributions are weak. I think other researchers can use the study. The reviewer recommends a revision after which the paper should be ready for publication. 

I listed my comments below:

1.  “1467 (non-mobile home) structures”. The whole paper is based on one dataset, that in the reviewer's opinion isn’t well described, are all structures in this dataset the same? The additional analysis that would investigate the difference between those structures and how this affects the loss would be useful

2. Please review keywords in the abstract “Keywords: keyword 1; keyword 2; keyword 3 (List three to ten pertinent keywords specific to the 20 articles yet reasonably common within the subject discipline.)”

3. Section2.1. Lines 116-125 Please read the following article that discusses a similar metric, either cite or add a comparison in this section 

Hurricane risk analysis of the residential structures located in Florida G Kakareko, S Jung, OA Vanli Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure 5 (6), 395-409

4. Section 2.3 lines 188-206 please read the work written by Mishara and Kakareko where they discussed the problem of roof loss in terms of the hurricane loss

S Mishra, OA Vanli, G Kakareko, S Jung Preventive maintenance of wood-framed buildings for hurricane preparedness 

G Kakareko, S Jung, S Mishra, OA Vanli Bayesian capacity model for hurricane vulnerability estimation Structure and Infrastructure Engineering 17 (5), 638-648

5. I feel that the literature review should be improved by additional publications from the AI  on hurricane loss estimation here are two recent examples:

Hurricane risk analysis of the residential structures located in Florida G Kakareko, S Jung, OA Vanli - Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure, 2019

Kocatepe, A., Ulak, M.B., Kakareko, G., Ozguven, E.E., Jung, S., Arghandeh, R., 2019. Measuring the accessibility of critical facilities in the presence of hurricane-related roadway closures and an approach for predicting future roadway disruptions. Natural Hazards 95, 615-635.

 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/rego.12255

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13669877.2020.1750456

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167473021000606