PERILS has released a EUR 60 million loss estimate for the UK and Ireland insured property market from the remnants of Hurricane Ophelia, which struck mid-October after trailing the U.S. East Coast.
Photo: Irish Times
Ireland was hardest hit by the storm, incurring a market loss of EUR 49 million, while this figure came to just EUR 10 million for the UK.
Luzi Hitz CEO of PERILS, said these estimates fall well below some initial reports which; “suggested that losses from the event in Ireland alone could reach $1.8 billion.
“After our loss data collection from affected insurance companies, we can conclude that the impact was much less severe and that the insured loss is entirely manageable by the insurance and reinsurance industries.
“This storm clearly demonstrates the importance of having an independent source for post event loss data which allows the market to compare the modelled results against the actual loss data.”
PERILS said it won’t be releasing any further loss surveys for the event, since the losses remain significantly below the data capture threshold of EUR 200 million for European windstorms.
Ophelia was the largest hurricane ever recorded that far east in the North Atlantic Basin, making the resulting windstorm that struck Europe a very rare event.
Up until 14th October, Ophelia was still classified as a category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, the system started to dissolve on the 15th just before it struck the UK’s north west coast.
