The Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP) has paid $340.36 million (TRY 6.5 billion) in claim payments so far for the victims related to the recent earthquakes that struck Turkey last month.
On February 6, 2023, a powerful Mw 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck south-central Turkey near the Syrian border. The quake produced a surface rupture length of approximately 250km. 11 minutes after the first shock, a Mw 6.7 aftershock occurred.
Nine hours later, another Mw 7.5 earthquake struck 95km to the north, on an adjacent but separate fault also within the East Anatolian fault system.
This devastating second earthquake initiated at a depth of 15km, and produced a surface rupture length of approximately 90km.
The earthquakes would impact eleven provinces in south-eastern Turkey, with Hatay, Kahramanmaras, Gaziantep, Malatya and Adiyaman being the worst affected.
In total, more than 13.5 million people in Turkey have been affected by the devastating quakes.
According to the latest figures, as of Monday, the number of damaged buildings from the quakes reached 416,021.
A total of 21,850 buildings were declared as collapsed, with 27,836 reported with heavy damage, 36,129 with medium damage, and 330,206 with light damage.
Meanwhile, catastrophe insurance data provider PERILS, recently released its first estimate of industry loss from the recent earthquakes, placing it at $3.5 billion (TRY 65.4 billion).
In terms of insured losses, PERILS states that the loss represents the costliest catastrophe event in Turkey’s recorded history.
PERILS’ estimate sits somewhat below the recent estimates from both Moody’s RMS and CoreLogic, who estimated insured losses at $5 billion.
Further, global reinsurance firm Hannover Re, also recently released estimates, pegging insured losses at $3.5-4 billion.
