PERILS expands service to Turkey with earthquake and flood

PERILS AG, the provider of industry-wide European catastrophe exposure, industry loss data and indices, has announced its expansion into a new territory, Turkey, where it will provide data coverage for earthquake and flood loss events.

PERILS collects and disseminates data on European catastrophe insurance and reinsurance losses, as well as property insurance exposure data covering windstorm, earthquake and flood risks in a range of countries.

The move into Turkey will see PERILS making available data on market-wide property sums insured which are exposed to earthquake and flood events in the country via its database, as well as providing loss data for specific major catastrophe events that strike.

Turkey brings the number of countries covered by PERILS to 14, also including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

In Turkey PERILS will collect property sums insured and event loss data from primary insurers, broken down by CRESTA Zone and Property Line of Business. PERILS produces an independent and objective data set of market exposures (total sums insured) and market event losses from the data collected.

The data can be used for industry loss-based risk transfer products, such as industry loss warranties (ILW’s), catastrophe bonds and other insurance or reinsurance linked securities (ILS), as well as for insurers and reinsurers to validate their catastrophe model assumptions using real event and loss data.

PERILS Industry Exposure & Loss Database for Turkey: The database includes market-wide property sums insured exposed to earthquake and flood, respectively, and event loss data for major earthquake and flood events. The data resolution is on a province (iller = CRESTA Zone) and Property line of business (residential, commercial) level. The map shows percentages per province of the total market-wide earthquake sums insured.

Luzi Hitz, CEO of PERILS, commented on the announcement; “The inclusion of Turkey marks another milestone in the ongoing evolution of PERILS. We are particularly grateful for the support which we have received from the majority of the primary insurance companies in this market. Without this support, PERILS could not fulfill its mission to increase transparency in the natural catastrophe risk arena, and as a result facilitate a more liquid and stable Cat market.”

Eduard Held, Head of Products at PERILS, added; “Turkey ranks as one of the top catastrophe markets globally. We are therefore proud that PERILS can now also provide the industry exposure and loss data for this market at a CRESTA and Property line of business resolution. This will have a positive effect on the modelling and management of Turkish catastrophe risk by improving the understanding of the risk, and as a consequence further enhance its tradability. PERILS data are also ideally suited for industry-loss-triggered ILWs and Cat bonds. As of today, PERILS has facilitated limits of more than USD 11bn of this kind of risk capacity and we are confident that this new service will help to stimulate further developments on this front for earthquake and flood risks in Turkey.”

Georg Andrea, Head of Data Management at PERILS, also said; “We are very pleased with our data providers’ commitment to PERILS and the good relationship we have with them. This is essential if we are to construct a high quality market database, which in turn can serve as a reliable and objective benchmarking tool for portfolio steering and risk assessment, as well as for industry loss-based risk transfer.”

The Turkey move also sees PERILS and U.S. headquartered Property Claim Services (PCS) both operating in the same contry for the first time. PCS expanded internationally to launch PCS Turkey in May, in order to provide catastrophe loss aggregation services and industry loss estimates in the country for all natural and man-made perils, designating all events which have over $10m of projected insured property losses.