Allstate counted 23 catastrophes in July and says two of them carried about three quarters of the $682m bill

Twenty three catastrophes. Two of them did most of the damage.

Allstate told the market on Thursday that it estimates catastrophe losses of $682 million for July, or $539 million after tax. The month contained 23 events. Approximately 75 percent of the losses relate to two wind and hail events, the company said, which leaves the other 21 to divide roughly a quarter of the total between them.

The disclosure is a monthly habit rather than an earnings release. It goes out under Item 7.01, which means it is furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission rather than filed with it, and every figure in it is described as an estimate.

Against the months either side of it

July is the second heaviest month the company has reported this year. April was $870 million, or $687 million after tax, from 10 wind and hail events, with about 70 percent of that month's losses related to two of them. May fell to $289 million. June came back to $563 million, and the company put the whole second quarter at $1.72 billion, or $1.36 billion after tax.

So the pattern in the two heavy months is the same one, and it has become slightly more pronounced. April concentrated 70 percent of its losses in two events out of ten. July concentrated about 75 percent in two events out of twenty three.

What the release does not say

It does not name the two events. It does not date them, locate them, or size them individually, and it offers no weather attribution of any kind. None of the earlier monthly releases read for this item names an event either, so a reader wanting to know which storms these were will not find the answer in the document.

The company states that it has 216 million policies in force.