The peak of tornado season may be behind us, but the eastward expansion of what has been
traditionally known as Tornado Alley into more populated areas may continue raising insurance risk for some time.
Record tornado activity in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin this year drove elevated claims and increasing risk because of population exposure. Increased los
ses in new areas weren’t from raw tornado counts across the U.S., but from increased risk exposure, according to one industry catastrophe modeler.
Illinois led all states in tornado activity in this year, with 220 confirmed tornadoes through the end of July. Indiana and Wisconsin also set record‑high numbers.
Weather experts say the tornado alley shift — beyond areas like Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas — is due to a warming climate that helps transport warmer and more
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-humid air farther north and east than in the past.
Illinois saw its third distinct spike in five years, and the year’s volume already exceeds 2024 a
nd 2025 combined, with average severity up by a factor of four since 2022, according to Verisk.
The 2026 Illinois surge has been concentrated, driven mainly by occurrences in June and July, and by strikes in Cook, Kankakee and Coles counties. Kanka
kee saw unusually high severity with a $104,000 average estimate, according to Verisk data.
Wisconsin experienced an even sharper spike, up 672% year-over-year, but that spike is due largely to a single concentrated event in Winnebago County in July the data show.
“The Tornado Alley’s kind of expanding or shifting a bit eastward, and so I think as we think about that from an insurance perspective and think about ‘What does
that mean for insurers,’ I think one of the largest concerns is there’s a lot more population as you move eastward,” said Tory Farney, vice president of Verisk Weather Solutions.
Their data show the numbers of tornadoes aren’t going up, but the losses have tended to be worse when they strike.