UBS, the Swiss multinational investment bank and financial services company, has estimated that insured losses resulting from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic could be between $30 billion and $60 billion, according to reports from Reuters.
The bank raised its estimates up from a previous range of $20 billion to $40 billion, due to growing concerns about the status of non-US business interruption claims.
UBS also increased its estimates for non-US business interruption losses to $7-22 billion from $5-15 billion previously.
It said $8-16 billion of credit insurance losses were expected, with most of these likely to be in reinsurance.
But the estimates remain somewhat lower than the figures released by research firm Dowling & Partners earlier this week, who said that the property and casualty industry alone should expect losses of between $40 billion and $80 billion.
And Lloyd’s CEO John Neal has warned that COVID-19 could be the most expensive event in history for the re/insurance industry, with losses possibly stretching into the hundreds of billions of pounds.
Chubb boss Evan Greenberg similarly expressed concerns about the prospect of insurers being forced to pay business interruption claims retrospectively.
He claims such action could “bankrupt the industry,” noting that there is only $800 billion available in capital to support all the normal risks it insures in one year, plus catastrophe events.
For comparison, the American Property Casualty Insurance Association has estimated that small businesses alone could incur losses of up to $431 billion per month while lockdown measures are in effect.
