Windstorm Andrea cost insurers €267m

The European windstorm Andrea cost insurers €267m, according to the first loss estimates by catastrophe insurance data company PERILS.

Andrea hit Western Europe on 4th and 5th of January 2012, affecting mainly Germany but also the UK, France, the Benelux countries and Switzerland.

According to PERILS this first market loss estimate is based on ultimate gross loss data as reported by primary insurance companies,
excluding losses indemnified by government schemes.

Other windstorms that occured in Europe this winter will not be reported on by the Zurich based company. PERILS announced that windstorms Dagmar, affecting Nordic countries in December 2011, and Ulli, causing damage in the UK in January, didn’t result in property market losses big enough to be reported on.

PERILS’s loss reporting threshold is €200m per event in the eleven markets which it monitors.

“Andrea was the last of a series of windstorms which impacted Europe between the end of November 2011 and the beginning of 2012,” commented Edi Held, Head of Sales & Products at PERILS.

“While all of the six events that PERILS investigated during this period resulted in significant local damage, one has to bear in mind that the resulting market-wide property losses are still only small fractions of the potential industry loss resulting from a 1-in-250 year pan-European event, which could be in the tens of billions of Euros.”

In line with the PERILS reporting schedule, an updated estimate of the Andrea market loss will be published on 4 April 2012.