If it feels like your desk has been unusually calm this hurricane season, you’re not imagining it. As of early September 2026, the Atlantic has produced just five named storms — Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly, and Edouard — and not one has strengthened into a hurricane. By one key measure, accumulated cyclone energy (ACE), this is the slowest start to an Atlantic season since satellite records began in 1966 [1].
NOAA’s latest outlook (issued August 6) still calls for 7–13 named storms this season, with 2–6 hurricanes and 0–2 major hurricanes — well below the long-term average of 14 named storms, 7 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes [2]. Forecasters are putting a 75% probability on a below-normal season overall, largely due to a strengthening El Niño pattern producing hostile wind shear across the basin [2].
A quiet season is not a safe season
Two things are worth sitting with before anyone gets comfortable:
- A slow start doesn’t predict a slow finish. 2019 had only two named storms by late August and still ended with 18 for the year [3]. September and October remain the climatological peak of the season, and conditions can shift quickly.
- It only takes one storm. A quiet basin-wide season doesn’t protect any single region from a damaging landfall or a slow-moving, flood-producing system — Tropical Storm Edouard alone dropped up to two feet of rain over parts of eastern Texas this year [1].
So the right posture for claims organizations isn’t relief — it’s preparation. A quiet stretch is a rare opportunity to get ahead of the next active period, not a reason to stand down.
What claims services companies should be doing right now
1. Use the lull to clear the backlog, not build one. Non-cat periods are the best time to close out aging files, resolve reserve disputes, and finish subrogation work that got deprioritized during past active stretches. Going into peak season with a clean pipeline matters more than people think.
2. Invest in training before volume forces your hand. Cross-train adjusters on cat protocols, refresh estimating software certifications, and run tabletop exercises for surge staffing. Training during a surge is training under pressure; training now is just training.
3. Stress-test technology and vendor networks. Confirm mobile inspection tools, virtual estimating platforms, and drone/aerial imagery vendors are ready to scale. Check that contractor and restoration vendor panels have current capacity commitments — vendor bandwidth evaporates fast once a storm makes landfall.
4. Revisit surge staffing and mutual aid agreements. Confirm catastrophe adjuster rosters, temporary staffing contracts, and reciprocal agreements with other carriers or TPAs are current. A quiet season is the time to renew these relationships, not the week after a storm forms.
5. Audit process, not just performance. Use the downtime to review claim-handling guidelines, documentation standards, and turnaround benchmarks. Look for friction points that only show up in hindsight during high-volume periods.
6. Communicate proactively with clients. This is a good window to begin communicating plans and structure around your companies plans for potential CATs (lord knows we are a little too reactive in this industry) — not as a sales moment, but as genuine preparedness support that reduces confusion and delay later.
7. Plan financially for a compressed, intense window. Late-forming seasons have historically produced sharp, concentrated activity. Budgeting and reserve planning should account for the possibility of several storms in quick succession rather than assuming the calm continues.
The Key Takeaway…
A quiet Atlantic season is a gift of time, not a guarantee of safety. The claims organizations that come out ahead won’t be the ones that relaxed — they’ll be the ones that used the calm to sharpen processes, strengthen vendor and staffing readiness, and make sure policyholders are better supported the moment conditions change.
Sources
- Weather.com, “Atlantic hurricane season’s least active start in 60 years” (Sept. 2026)
- NOAA, “NOAA maintains prediction for below-normal Atlantic hurricane season” (Aug. 6, 2026)
- Moody’s, “2026 North Atlantic hurricane season update: Strong El Niño expected to suppress peak-season activity”
