Global reinsurance firm Munich Re has pre-announced an expectation of another significant claims burden from the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as an above-average level of natural and man-made catastrophe losses for the third-quarter of 2020.
Munich Re said today it expects to report roughly €800 million in claims from the COVID-19 pandemic from the third-quarter, largely in its reinsurance book and on the property and casualty side.
The reinsurance firm said that its latest COVID-19 losses are attributable to a range of business lines, including insurance for major events, other property-casualty lines, and the life and health business.
The reveal of these additional COVID-19 losses takes Munich Re’s total reserves set for the pandemic to around $2.72 billion so far, according to data collected on Covid loss reports by our sister site Reinsurance News.
On top of this, Munich Re reported “high losses from natural disasters”, as impacts from hurricanes and wildfires, as well as man-made losses, the largest of which was the explosion in the port of Beirut, Lebanon.
Munich Re cites “an above-average claims burden from “non-COVID-19 major losses” for a single quarter,” but did not put a figure on the claims from these catastrophe events.
As a result, Munich Re said that it still expects, thanks to good performance at ERGO, a profit of about €200 million for the third quarter of 2020, down on the prior year periods €865m.
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