PERILS to assess European windstorm Christian loss potential

Zurich based PERILS AG, the independent provider of industry-wide European catastrophe insurance loss data and indices, told Artemis this morning that it will assess the potential for European windstorm Christian to cause a sufficient market-wide insured loss to qualify for full reporting.

PERILS AG reports on and produces event loss information on qualifying European windstorm events which cause a market-wide insured industry property loss exceeding €200m. PERILS makes an initial assessment of a windstorm’s potential to create a sufficient insurance industry loss as the first step in its process. If it is decided that the storm could cause a €200m market-wide loss then it will be reported on as PERILS receives information on the market losses suffered.

PERILS makes the total insured loss figures publicly available for any qualifying events while its subscribers also have access to more granular industry loss information, including by country, CRESTA Zone and occupancy type (residential property, commercial property, industrial property and agricultural property).

Dr. Eduard Held, Head of Products at PERILS, told Artemis; “PERILS is in the process of deciding whether the event has the potential to lead to a market-wide insured property loss of more than EUR 200m.”

If it is decided that European windstorm Christian (or the St Jude storm, or Carmen, depending on who is discussing it) has the potential to cause that size of loss it will be moved from being ‘under investigation’ to a ‘qualifying event’ at PERILS.

Held continued; “Should such an investigation lead to the view that it is likely that the EUR 200m threshold will be exceeded, PERILS will capture loss data and report it according to the PERILS reporting schedule.”

PERILS loss data and indices are widely used within the insurance-linked securities, catastrophe bond, industry-loss warranty (ILW) and broader reinsurance markets as the reporting agency for losses on any contracts exposed to industry wide insured losses for European windstorms. As a result, should Christian qualify to be reported on, the reinsurance and ILS industry will watch closely to see what the resulting industry loss total is reported as.

While it is very early days in terms of Christian, as the storm has only just finished impacting the UK, causing some insurable damage according to reports, and is now heading towards northern European countries where further damaging winds are likely as we wrote yesterday, European windstorm Christian does have the potential to meet PERILS criteria to become a qualifying event.

We will update you should that happen in the coming days.

Read our article from yesterday: European windstorm Christian threatens UK and northern Europe.