This paper tests the U.S. stock market efficiency around all 18 hurricanes that have hit continental U.S. since 2000. Using an event-study methodology, the study analyzes the effect of those 18 hurricanes on a sample of 60 property-casualty insurance companies before and following the hurricanes’ landfall. The study supports the semi-strong form market efficiency and concludes that market inefficiency only exists during the pre-landfall period. Moreover, a significant negative relationship is found between the wind speed and firms’ risk exposure, which reiterates the market’s ability to differentiate hurricanes by their damaging power and to discriminate P&C insurers by their existence of exposure
