PERILS, the Zurich-based catastrophe insurance data provider, has provided its first insurance industry loss estimate for extratropical windstorm Goretti, which affected southwestern England, northern France, and Belgium from 8 to 9 January 2026 at €467 million.
The PERILS estimate of the insurance market loss from Windstorm Goretti, which is also known as Elli, is based on loss data collected from the affected insurers. According to the PERILS coverage definition for Europe, this initial estimate covers the property and motor line of business.
Luzi Hitz, Product Manager at PERILS, commented, “Windstorm Goretti was the first European windstorm event of the 2025/26 season to exceed our capturing threshold of €300 million for any one country or €500 million for a Europewide event.
“Its high-wind field covered practically the entire English Channel and affected the bordering regions. Except for Cornwall and the Channel Islands, the UK was largely spared from its impact. Had the storm track been further north, it would have been a much more impactful event with much higher losses.”
She continued, “France, however, was not as fortunate with damaging winds affecting practically the entire northern half of the country. This is why the vast majority of the Goretti losses – close to 75% – occurred in France. In comparison, Belgium was only marginally impacted.”
Goretti marks the biggest European windstorm event loss so far in the 2025/26 season. The vent was named Goretti by Météo France and Elli by the Free University of Berlin.
It was a multi-faceted European winter storm that generated record-breaking wind gusts, high waves, and a combination of rain, snow and ice.
A gust of 213 km/h was measured at the Gatteville lighthouse on the tip of the Cotentin Peninsula in the Manche department.
According to PERILS, Goretti’s impact was “exceptional” at a local level but not unusual from a Europe-wide perspective, where windstorm event losses of this size can be observed annually.
Meteorologically, the event was characterised by explosive cyclogenesis and an atmospheric phenomenon known as “sting jet”. The latter led to very high winds in a narrow corridor which affected Cornwall at the southwestern tip of England, the Channel Islands, and the Manche and Calvados departments in northwestern France.
