flood insurance

Consultancy PwC has raised its estimate for the insurance and reinsurance industry loss from flooding  and damage experienced in the UK from windstorms Desmond and Eva up to £1.2 billion ($1.8 billion), while storm Frank hitting the UK today will raise the toll further.

Estimates of insurance and reinsurance industry losses from the recent UK flooding caused by storms Desmond and Eva are rising, with KPMG suggesting re/insurers should expect a £1.5 billion ($2.23 billion) hit.

Flood Re, the UK’s government backed reinsurance scheme to help make flood insurance more accessible to property owners, has secured its first tranche of retrocession, securing £1.29 billion of cover from six traditional counterparties.

The UK’s new government backed reinsurance scheme, Flood Re, is planning to buy £2.1 billion ($3.27 billion) of retrocessional reinsurance cover, which is likely to include collateralised or ILS markets, adding another welcome source of new demand for capacity.

Research suggests that flooding poses a threat to roughly 21 million people across the world every year, costing the global economy roughly $90.65 billion, with the potential for an estimated six-fold increase over the next 15 years.

The UK government’s planned state-backed flood reinsurance pool, Flood Re, has published a tender for retrocessional reinsurance broker services, detailing that it is open to alternative risk transfer or alternative (capital) market solutions.

The UK’s planned state-backed flood reinsurance pool, Flood Re, could leave UK insurance companies more exposed than before as the facility relies on the government keeping its promises on flood defenses and could raise exposure to climate change, said S&P.

A new pilot scheme offering flood insurance to residents of a region of Bangladesh using a parametric product based on flood depths has been launched by a group of organisations including Oxfam and Swiss Re. The product aims to use alternative risk transfer techniques to protect poor residents of river basin areas of the country.