The Gulf Coast Claims Facility (“GCCF”) has issued a report containing updated data on claims payments made as of November 17, 2010. 

As of November 17, 2010, 395,003 claimants have submitted claims of one or more type.  Of those, the overwhelming majority of claims, 331,640, have been submitted by those claimants classified as individuals, while 63,363 businesses have submitted claims.  With 116,067 claims paid, the total amount paid through the claims process, including BP claim payments, now totals $1,861,791,091.  The GCCF has been managing the claims process now for approximately 12 weeks.  We previously reported that over the 16 weeks that BP managed the claims process it paid out approximately $400 million in claims.

In terms of types of claim payments being made, 99.9% of payments ($1,861,094,691) relate to claims for “Lost Earnings or Profits.”  The food, beverage and lodging, fishing, rental property, and retail, sales and service industries comprise the majority of Lost Earnings or Profits claims payments, totaling approximately $1.641 billion.  Claims payments made for “Real or Personal Property” claims total $669,063, and $27,337 of claims payments are attributable to “Loss of Subsistence/Use of Natural Resources” and “Physical Injury/Death.”

Claims payments by state are still heavily weighted towards the Gulf Coast states, composed of Louisiana ($640 million), Florida ($610 million), Alabama ($331 million), Mississippi ($162 million), and Texas ($69 million).  Payments to other states total $50 million.  With the late October 2010 announcement that geographic proximity to the BP Deepwater Horizon incident would not preclude a legitimate individual or business claim (see our post here), it remains to be seen whether there will be a noticeable increase in claims payments made to individuals and business outside of the Gulf Coast states in the future.