European windstorm Ciarán insured losses surges to €2.04bn
Insured losses from extratropical windstorm Ciarán (also known as Emir), which hit France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and the Netherlands in early November 2023, have increased by 5.5 percent to €2.04 billion, according to the latest estimates from Zurich-based nat cat data provider PERILS.
The estimated loss has increased in comparison to prior figures. The estimate released six weeks after the storm stood at approximately €1.9 billion and was later upped to €1.94 billion three months after the event. These estimates cover the property line of business and are based on loss data collected from the affected insurers.
In line with the PERILS reporting schedule, a final estimate of the market loss from Windstorm Ciarán will be made available on November 2, 2024, 12 months after the event end date.
The third PERILS loss report for Ciarán provides the industry loss per CRESTA zone and property lines of business. Loss figures are complemented by damage degrees, showing the loss as a percentage of sums insured, as well as wind-gust data from the German Met Office and EuroTempest.
France represented the largest portion of the insured loss figure at €1.738 billion, followed by the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Netherlands. PERILS reported that while overall losses were significant at €2.04 billion, from a European perspective, Ciarán’s industry loss was not unusual as windstorm losses of this size can be expected to occur once every four years. For France alone, it was a rarer windstorm event with the loss level generated by Ciarán expected to be reached or exceeded once every 12 years.
Windstorm Ciarán was named by the UK Met Office and was the most damaging storm of the 2023/24 European windstorm season. It was characterised by a narrow band of extreme winds affecting northern France, the Channel Islands and southern England, Belgium and to a lesser extent the Netherlands. In France, wind speeds reached levels not seen since the Great Storm of 1987 (also known as 87J), with the station of Pointe du Raz in Brittany measuring a gust of 207 km/h, the second highest ever recorded in mainland France.
Christoph Oehy, chief executive officer of PERILS, said: “The detailed loss collection at CRESTA-level carried out in our third loss report for Extratropical Windstorm Ciarán is of particular interest due to the record high wind speeds in some regions of France and the Channel Islands that caused the losses. This type of data combined with PERILS Industry Exposure data provides new insights into the vulnerability of different lines of business and is an essential component of any Cat risk model as it links the physical intensity of events with the expected insurance losses.”
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