Storm Ciarán to cost insurers up to €1.5bn: Moody’s RMS

Insured losses from storm Ciarán, also known as Emir, will fall between €900m and €1.5bn, according to Moody’s RMS.

Damage in France accounts for the majority of the loss, with the storm also causing damage in Belgium, UK, the Channel Islands, the Netherlands and Germany, when it hit on 1-2 November.

The estimate, using RMS’s European windstorm models, covers wind damage to property, cars, agriculture and direct business interruption. It excludes losses from infrastructure, which is not expected to be material, and damages from storm Domingos, which followed Ciarán. The estimate also considers non-modelled impacts from flooding.

Giovanni Leoncini, senior product manager for Europe windstorm models at Moody’s RMS, said: “Windstorm Ciaràn can be thought of as a weaker sibling of 87J, the Great Storm of 1987, which severely affected the UK and Northwest France in October 1987. Even with lower gust speeds and a more limited extent compared to 87J, losses will still be significant for France. Despite the recent period of windstorm activity, the destruction now brought by Ciaràn reminds us of the importance of extra tropical cyclones for the (re)insurance industry.”

Last week, Verisk pegged losses from the storm at between €800m and €1.3bn.