Insured losses in Ukraine still under fog of war, but above early view

Likely claims totals from the war in Ukraine may have risen by some one quarter to neighbourhood $26 billion from guesses possible still early in the conflict, a key official from Verisk said of his company's rough estimates.

"Our total has lifted a bit, but not intensively out of line with where we were eight months ago,” the chief of Verisk's catastrophic loss estimate unit PCS, Tom Johansmeyer, told an online seminar on the war losses. Caveats are numerous with estimates "still based on very little data."

The increase can be traced to aviation lines and property per risk, each up by $2 billion from initial estimates issued in May 2022.

The aviation estimate trended towards the upper end of the initial range on assumption that the planes could be in working order, but can't go back in the air in the west with such a break in documented maintenance.

Increased forecasts for property per risk from $3 billion to $5 billion follow the incoming trickle of new information, including on a steel plant in Kryvyi Rih. The conflict's shift into high-cadence longer-range missile attacks bears impact. Keep your ears open for eventual claims from the Mariupol steel plant.

Forecasts for marine insurance remain flat at initial estimate of $5 billion, with a warning not to get one's hopes up on blocking and trapping claims just because some grain gets through.

Loss estimates for energy lines rose from an initial estimate of $2.5 billion to $4 billion on news from select assets and assumptions following the missile targeting of energy infrastructure.

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