Sydney hail storm property loss estimated at A$635m: PERILS

The property loss caused by the December hail storm in Sydney and the surrounding area of Australia is estimated to have caused an insurance and reinsurance market loss of A$635 million (US$462m) by PERILS AG.

The catastrophe insurance data and loss estimate provider only tracks property losses in Australia, hence its estimate will be far below the overall market wide loss including automotive damage, which was a significant factor in this hailstorm event.

PERILS estimate is for losses from the December 20th hailstorm as well as further severe storms that hit southeastern Queensland on 21st and 22nd December 2018.

PERILS said that its initial estimate for insured property market losses from the 20th to 22nd December 2018 storms is AUD 635 million, based on data collected from insurers. The firm said that the majority of the losses reported were in the greater Sydney area.

The hail storm struck the Sydney, Central Coast and South East Queensland areas of Australia, damaging residential and commercial properties and automobile’s.

The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) had given its most recent estimate of market losses from the hail storm as A$871 million based on 99,638 claims reported, with the majority at 71,475 being motor vehicle claims, 22,057 home building and 4563 contents claims.

More recently, investment analysts at Firetrail Investments said the eventual insurance and reinsurance industry loss from the hailstorm could reach as much as A$2 billion.

Darryl Pidcock, Head of PERILS Asia-Pacific, commented on the estimate, “This is the first hail loss event to be captured since PERILS entered the Australian market and provides another example of the value we can bring to the market by boosting the availability of consistent Cat data. As for all the PERILS industry losses, the initial Property market loss estimate for the Sydney Hailstorm has been produced by collecting loss information directly from the affected insurance companies. In Australia, these represent the vast majority of the market. We are very grateful for their support and remain fully committed to repaying their efforts through the provision of high-quality industry data, which among other uses are employed as triggers in industry-loss-based risk transfer and for Cat risk model validation.”

PERILS only tracks the property insurance loss component and so losses from motor and other business lines are not included in the estimate. PERILS will updates its estimate on 20th March 2019, three months after the event start date.

As we explained before, IAG believes its claims this hail storm will drive a loss at least in-line with its maximum first event retention, after taking into account its quota share reinsurance as well.

Suncorp said its losses will exceed its reinsurance program’s first event retention, triggering a payout, and also said the event would eat through its aggregate reinsurance layer retention as well.

In addition, we reported that a number of insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds are expecting to experience some loss impacts due to the Sydney area hailstorm, through quota share arrangements and collateralized participation in Australian insurer reinsurance programs.