The four most recent cases of the New World screwworm have been confirmed on the same Texa
s property, marking the largest cluster of detections to be reported since the parasite was found in the US earlier this month.
Three cattle and one goat were detected to have screwworm in Terrell County, which is adj
. All were from a single premises, the Texas Animal Health Commission said in a Wednesday email.
That brings the total number of cases in the U.S. to 19 since early June when the screwworm was originally detected in a calf in Zavala County, Texas. The outbrea
k is the first in the US in a decade and the first in livestock in about 50 years, threatening the nation’s largest cattle state at a time when the country’s herd has already shrunk.
The screwworm is a fly whose larvae burrow into the wounds of warm-blooded animals, and it usually spreads via the movement of infested animals. Infestation
s are treatable but can cause death if undetected. The screwworm poses no threat to the safety of the U.S. food supply.
Epidemiological investigations have not yet been completed on the Terrell County cases, but tracebacks are currently underway to determine how the infestations occurred, the commission said. There is currently a quarantine in
parts of more than a dozen Texas counties, according to the commission.
“We’re really starting to see increased usage across the board of those ACV (actual cash value)-only loss provisions and loss settlements and endorsem
ents than we have in the past,” said Susan Fleming, vice president of business intelligence and insights at Verisk.
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Verisk is seeing more carriers using the percentage deductible than before, requiring policyholders, for example, to pay 2% of the overall value of the home to repair a $3,000 water loss.
“That wind and hail deductible is consistently, almost always utilized, or a lot more frequently than we saw in the past, and as insureds have to take a portion of
that loss and are responsible for it, we start to see fewer and fewer claims being filed,” she said.
Water accounted for 31.1% of U.S. property claims in the first quarter, increasing 6% over last year. That was followed by wind (20.4%) and then hail claims. Hail claims, w
hich have received a lot of attention lately due to their increasing volatility, actually fell 23.6%.
The trend of falling hail claims appears to back up what Fleming is seeing in the data. Average U.S. residential roof replacement costs jumped 33% and repair costs r
ose 25% in 2025 compared to the prior four-year average despite a sharp decline in claims volume, a report out from Verisk in June shows.
The claims report also examined losses from winter storms Fern and Hernando, which produced more than 46,000 ice, snow and collapse claims with a $478 million in
estimated replacement costs. Fern, which hit from January 23 to 29, affected a large portion of the East. Hernando hit the Northeast from February 21 to 23 and produced blizzard conditions.
Despite the national decline in volume, a handful of Western states saw big claims increases, including Alaska (121%), Arizona (78%), Montana (49%), the Verisk Q1 2026 Property Report shows.
The report shows total reconstruction costs are still on the rise.
