Reinsurance News
Losses
News on catastrophe and man-made losses that impact or could impact the reinsurance industry and reinsurers around the globe.
Tornadoes cause major damage in Nashville & central TN
3rd March 2020
Two tornadoes have caused widespread damage across central Tennessee, including in the state capital of Nashville, destroying at least 40 buildings and leaving 19 people dead. Parts of Nashville were left in darkness as the tornadoes arrived overnight on March 2-3, leaving about 44,000 people without power. Strong winds also blew down ... Read the full article
Latest estimates put Australian hailstorm losses at AU $805mn
2nd March 2020
The latest estimates from the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) put re/insurance industry losses from the recent January hailstorm events in the region of AU $805 million (US $527 million). Losses are related to a series of destructive hailstorms that struck parts of Victoria, Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Queensland, and New ... Read the full article
Bank of Montreal (BMO) hit by typhoons after decision to exit reinsurance
25th February 2020
The Bank of Montreal (BMO) has revealed that it was hit by CAD 25 million (USD 19 million) of reinsurance claims from the Japanese typhoons in 2019, which occurred just week’s after its decision to wind down its reinsurance business. BMO underwrites reinsurance, including catastrophe risk, through its BMO Reinsurance Limited ... Read the full article
Allstate records $58mn cat losses for January, reverts back to threshold
21st February 2020
US primary insurer Allstate Corporation has announced an estimated $58 million in pre-tax catastrophe losses for January 2020. Allstate has also reverted back to a cat loss reporting threshold of $150 million in a calendar month. The company had previously dropped this threshold last October. This practice, Allstate says, is consistent with its ... Read the full article
Storms Ciara & Dennis could push UK insurers to underwriting loss: Fitch
20th February 2020
Analysts at Fitch Ratings believe that costs from storms Ciara and Dennis will increase pressure on UK household insurers’ profitability in 2020, potentially pushing them to an underwriting loss. The storms brought strong winds, torrential rain and widespread flooding to the UK before moving across to other parts of Europe, with ... Read the full article
Storm Sabine (Ciara) insured losses pegged at €675mn in Germany: GDV
18th February 2020
Storm Sabine (also known as Ciara in the UK) is estimated to have caused re/insurance industry losses of around €675 million in Germany, according to the General Association of the German Insurance Industry (GDV). Sabine caused major disruption in Germany over February 10th and 11th, as winds in excess of 120kmh ... Read the full article
Extreme pandemic could exhaust 12% of US life capital: S&P
17th February 2020
Analysts at S&P Global Ratings have estimated that an extreme pandemic event could result in $52 billion of excess net mortality claims for US life re/insurers, or about 12% of aggregate industry capital. This hypothetical stress test was conducted against the backdrop of the coronavirus outbreak, which has infected 71,442 people ... Read the full article
PERILS estimates peak industry bushfire losses at AU $1.6bn
17th February 2020
Catastrophe loss data aggregator PERILS has estimated that insurance industry losses resulting from the recent bushfire outbreak in southeast Australia will amount to AU $1.568 billion (US $1.05 billion). The figure is well below the AU $1.9 billion estimated released by the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) last week, but ... Read the full article
Storm Ciara insured loss estimated at up to €1.8bn by RMS
14th February 2020
Catastrophe risk modeller RMS has estimated that the insurance industry loss from windstorm Ciara, also known as windstorm Sabine, will likely range between €1.1 billion (USD 1.2 billion) and €1.8 billion (USD 1.95 billion). The RMS loss estimate for storm Ciara, which struck parts of Ireland and the UK on Sunday ... Read the full article
AIR puts storm Ciara insured losses at up to €1.9bn
14th February 2020
The insurance industry loss from last weekend's European windstorm Ciara (also known as Sabine) is expected to be between €1.1 billion (USD 1.2 billion) and €1.9 billion (USD 2.1 billion), according to catastrophe risk modeller AIR Worldwide, a Verisk business. Known as windstorm Ciara in the UK, or windstorm Sabine in ... Read the full article
PERILS settles on Townsville Flood estimate of AU $1.2bn
10th February 2020
Catastrophe loss data aggregator PERILS has settled on a figure of AU $1.243 billion (US $830 million) as its fourth and final estimate for the insurance market loss resulting from the flooding in northern Queensland, Australia over January and February 2019. The final estimate represents a slight increase on the previous ... Read the full article
ICA declares catastrophe for east coast storms & flooding
10th February 2020
The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has declared the sixth catastrophe in the past five months, following property losses caused by recent storms and flooding across the east coast since February 5th, 2020. According to the ICA, insurance companies have received 10,000 claims with the value of claims estimated at AUD ... Read the full article
Norsk Hydro claims a further $20.2mn from its cyber insurance in Q4
7th February 2020
Aluminium manufacturing giant Norsk Hydro has announced that during the fourth-quarter of 2019, it recognised NOK 187 million (USD 20.2 million) of insurance compensation in relation to the cyber-attack on its operations in March, 2019. The firm detected unusual activity on its servers that disabled part of its smelting operations, leading ... Read the full article
Bushfires & winter storms push economic bill to $3bn in January: Aon
7th February 2020
Devastating bushfires in Australia and powerful winter storms in the US have contributed to a costly natural catastrophe bill in January 2020, with re/insurance broker Aon estimating that economic losses will exceed $3 billion. Bushfires across sections of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, and Western Australia destroyed more than ... Read the full article
Beazley profits jump off investments, rates rise 6%
6th February 2020
Specialist insurer Beazley has posted a pre-tax profit for 2019 of $267.7 million, up from $76.4 million in 2018, and reported a 6% rate increase. Beazley’s pre-tax profit jump was bolstered by a strong investment return of $263.7 million, up from $41.1 million in 2018. The firm’s combined ratio of 100% - ... Read the full article