insured losses

PERILS AG, the provider of industry-wide European catastrophe exposure, industry loss data and indices, has launched a new website called Wind-Jeannie which provides forecasts of potential industry losses from European windstorms.

In a reminder that catastrophe claims are not always settled rapidly and that it can take some years before the final insurance industry loss and impact to reinsurance markets is clear, IAG has revealed another deterioration in its loss due to the 2011 Canterbury, New Zealand earthquakes.

Just a few days after we wrote about the still-apparent protection gap, between economic and insured losses, due to typhoon Soudelor, figures from China show that on flood events the gap is as wide, with $18.4 billion of economic loss due to flooding in 2015 so far.

Typhoon Soudelor, which struck Saipan, Taiwan and China recently killing at least 41 people and wreaking destruction from strong wind and torrential rainfall, has once again highlighted that the protection gap, between economic and insured losses, remains wide.

The global insurance and reinsurance industry will pay for an above average percentage of economic losses from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters in the first-half of 2015, according to reinsurer Swiss Re.

Catastrophe activity during the second-quarter of the year has resulted in the lowest first-half catastrophe insured loss total across the U.S. and Canada since 2010, but the frequency of events is on the rise, according to Property Claims Services (PCS).

Aon Benfield, the reinsurance broking arm of Aon plc, said today that its Impact Forecasting catastrophe model team has determined that first-half 2015 catastrophe insured losses totaled just $15 billion, which is 47% below the ten-year average.

Global insurance industry catastrophe losses for the first-half of 2015 are some 56% less than the 10-year average ($27 billion) at $12 billion, and insured losses from the U.S. contributed 67%, or roughly $8 billion of the total, according to reinsurer Munich Re.

PERILS AG has lowered its insurance industry loss estimate for January 2015’s European windstorms Elon-Felix from the last report of €335m down to a reduced €328m, which is back to where the first estimate for this storm was reported.

Despite severe winter weather and intense convective storm activity in the U.S. during the first six months of 2015, insurance industry losses from natural disasters and catastrophe events were again below the ten-year (2005-2014) average, according to reinsurer Aon Benfield.