01:51 PM EDT, 10/09/2024 (MT Newswires) -- The insurance industry could face losses of roughly $50 billion from Hurricane Milton, though the possible range indicates an up to $100 billion hit, Deutsche Bank said in a note emailed Wednesday.

Milton is forecast to remain "an extremely dangerous major hurricane" when it reaches Florida's west-central coast Wednesday night, and remain at hurricane strength as it moves across the Florida peninsula through Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said in a public advisory issued Wednesday. "Gradual weakening is forecast while Milton moves eastward over the western Atlantic, and it is likely to become an extratropical storm by early Friday."

Deutsche Bank called the hurricane a "1-in-250-year event" in the Gulf of Mexico, with loss estimates ranging from $10 billion to $100 billion. Deutsche Bank's base case is for a loss of about $50 billion.

The risk that Hurricane Milton could hit the densely populated region of Tampa resulted in a broad sell-off in insurance and reinsurance stocks on Monday, Deutsche Bank analyst Cave Montazeri said in the note to clients.

Shares of Allstate ( ALL ) , Travelers (TRV), Progressive (PGR), Arch Capital Group ( ACGL ) , Markel Group ( MKL ) , W. R. Berkley ( WRB ) and Everest Re Group (EG) fell Monday. The stocks rebounded Tuesday and extended their gains into Wednesday intraday trade.

Flight operations at Florida airports continued to be disrupted on Wednesday, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware. Tampa International, Southwest Florida International, Orlando International, and Sarasota-Bradenton International were among the airports closed due to the hurricane.

An estimated 2.8% of US real gross domestic product is in the direct path of Hurricane Milton, Oxford Economics said in a Tuesday note. If the storm is a category 5 when it makes landfall, that would imply a 0.14-percentage point drag on fourth-quarter GDP growth, Chief US Economist Ryan Sweet said.

"Traditionally, hurricanes with larger economic drags disrupt energy infrastructure, including offshore rigs and/or refineries, which leads to a rise in national gasoline prices," Sweet wrote.

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