PERILS may add Central European flood industry exposure & loss data

Zurich based PERILS AG, the independent provider of industry-wide European catastrophe insurance exposure and industry loss data and indices, is planning to further expand its coverage to include industry exposure and loss data for Central & Eastern European floods.

PERILS aggregates loss data from the insurance and reinsurance market for catastrophe events across Europe. Its core product is European windstorm loss and exposure data, which it provides for Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. PERILS added UK flood industry data coverage for 2012, followed by the addition of Italy earthquake and flood data earlier this year.

Now PERILS is planning to add coverage for flood loss events in some Central & Eastern European countries. Countries covered for flood loss events in the region, to begin with, could be Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland.

Given the major flooding experienced across this region during 2013, which estimates suggest caused a market-wide insured loss of around $4.5 billion, there is certain to be demand for flood loss data and indices for this region.

The data services PERILS provides allow traditional reinsurers to better understand their exposures and use the resulting industry loss estimates and indices within risk transfer triggers. The data also allows alternative reinsurance capital to access new catastrophe risks, through instruments such as catastrophe bonds and industry-loss warrants (ILWs) which can utilise PERILS data as trigger points.

The obvious next step for PERILS would be to launch German flood as a new catastrophe peril to provide data for. Flood exposure in Germany is high, with the bulk of the insured losses from this summer’s floods emanating there, and it has a mature catastrophe reinsurance market where provision of industry loss data and indices would be welcomed.

PERILS continues to look to expand its services to new risks and regions, which will in turn help to grow the use of industry loss based risk transfer instruments like cat bonds and ILW’s and create opportunities for alternative reinsurance capital to participate in the underwriting of new perils and risks.

Read our article from September: PERILS-based limits at risk hit $4.3B, over $8B placed since launch.