Zurich-based catastrophe insurance data provider PERILS has released its final loss estimate for the European windstorm series which affected the British Isles and continental Europe in February 2022, totalling €3,851m.
The windstorm series consisted of three storms named Dudley, Eunice and Franklin by the UK Met Office, and Ylenia, Zeynep and Antonia by the Free University of Berlin.
PERILS states that the €3,851 million figure is based on claims data collected from affected insurance companies.
It compares to previous loss estimates of €3,739m, €3,610m and €3,289m released six months, three months and six weeks after the event.
The European windstorm series was driven by a strong jet stream which led to a cluster of three low-pressure systems that hit similar areas within less than one week.
The lows generated strong winds across the British Isles and Western Europe causing major disruption and widespread but mostly non-structural damage.
According to PERILS, most of the losses occurred in Germany, followed by the Benelux states, the United Kingdom and France, while minor losses occurred in Austria, Switzerland and Denmark.
The catastrophe insurance data provider adds, “A total of 1.9 million insurance claims were filed, resulting in an industry loss of €3,851m.
“Based on an actuarial analysis of European windstorm losses since 1979, a loss of this size is reached or exceeded approximately once every eight to nine years.”
PERILS notes that windstorm clustering is not unusual for European extratropical cyclones, however, allocating the associated losses to the individual low-pressure system can be challenging for insurance companies.
This is further complicated by the fact that event definitions for reinsurance purposes are not uniform and may include meteorological conditions as well as loss aggregation periods typically ranging from 72 to 168 hours.
As a result, PERILS has reported the February 2022 European windstorm series as a single insurance event.
