flood

Catastrophe risk modelling firm RMS has provided an estimate of the insurance and reinsurance industry loss from July’s devastating flooding across Europe, saying it could be as high as €6.5 billion (US $7.7bn).

Expectations for insurance and reinsurance market losses from the July flood disaster in Germany are rising, with regulator BAFIN estimating the toll at €5.7 billion, around €1 billion of which it expects will fall to reinsurance firms from the country.

W&W Group, or Wüstenrot & Württembergische AG, a major German insurance carrier, has reported that it expects a €400 million gross loss from the flooding in July, but this will be minimised by its catastrophe reinsurance program.

Talanx, the German insurance and reinsurance group and parent of major player Hannover Re, has said that it anticipates recovering roughly half of its claims burden from the recent severe floods that affected Europe from reinsurance and retrocession partners.

Belgium headquartered insurance group Ageas is the latest European carrier to reveal an expectation of significant reinsurance support to help it pay claims to customers from the recent severe floods that affected the region.

Both Germany and China have experienced their most costly insured natural disaster loss events in history in July, with both largely related to the impacts of devastating flooding, according to insurance and reinsurance broker Aon.

German reinsurance firm Deutsche Rück has said that its retrocession program will be triggered and protect its balance-sheet against some of the financial impacts of the recent severe flooding in Germany.

Global insurer Allianz is anticipating around €900 million of gross losses just from storm Bernd’s impacts in Europe and the related severe flooding that struck the region, with Germany the country worst affected and the source of the majority of the financial impact.

Global insurer Generali revealed this morning that it has tapped into its reinsurance arrangements to help pay for natural catastrophe claims from the first-half of the year and that it expects to do so again for its share of the European flood losses from July.

The Chinese government via its regulator has urged its insurance and reinsurance industry to focus on developing new products for disaster risk transfer and to help in covering more of the natural catastrophe risk in the country, given the current evident protection gap that exists.