PERILS finalises industry loss estimate for windstorm Éowyn at €765m

Catastrophe data aggregator PERILS has issued its fourth and final industry loss estimate for Windstorm Éowyn, which affected the British Isles during the period of January 24th – 25th 2025, putting the insured market loss at €765 million.

This final figure compares to earlier estimates of €619 million, which was issued six weeks after the event, €696 million (three months after), and €747 million (six months after).

It’s worth highlighting that just three months after the event, the industry loss was already 91% of the final industry loss of €765 million.

PERILS also noted its estimate relates to property lines of business and is based on loss information submitted by insurers impacted by the storm.

Windstorm Éowyn was a particularly intense European extratropical cyclone, which brought extremely strong winds to the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the Central Belt of Scotland, with hurricane-force gusts of up to 185 km/h recorded in Ireland, exceeding previous records.

PERILS also explained that the storm caused widespread disruption, with approximately 1.8 million premises affected by power outages and more than 1.4 million people were left without mobile phone coverage.

As well as this, thousands of trees were uprooted, heavy vehicles were overturned and entire roofs were reportedly ripped off buildings by the high winds from the storm, while two fatalities were reported as a consequence of storm-related incidents.

PERILS highlighted that insured losses in Ireland reached a staggering €316 million, making Éowyn the largest windstorm loss for the Irish insurance market in at least 45 years.

During its assessment in the UK, PERILS estimates the industry loss to be £378 million, a level which PERILS indicates aligns with losses that have been recorded or surpassed on two occasions in the last twenty years.

Luzi Hitz, Product Manager at PERILS, commented: “Given the rare intensity of Éowyn, the robustness of the loss estimates over the last 12 month is quite remarkable. Early insured loss estimates by insurers are typically based on insights from similar past events and if no precedent exists, projections can be more challenging.

“Therefore, the 24% increase from EUR 619 million six weeks post-event to EUR 765 million one year post-event, and in particular the 10% increase from EUR 696 million three month post-event to the twelve month figure, represent a relatively modest loss development. This stability underscores the robustness of the Cat loss estimation practices in the UK and Irish insurance markets.”

He continued: “While it did not dominate the headlines for long, Windstorm Éowyn is a valuable event from a data perspective. It provides rare data points for exceptionally high wind speeds. Further, it was predominantly a dry event with little contribution from water-induced losses. As such, Éowyn serves as an ideal data source for calibrating vulnerability functions at extreme gust speeds for which data is generally limited.”