Perils estimates €740m insurance losses from ‘Dragi-Eberhard’ storms

Property insurance losses for the ‘Dragi-Eberhard’ winter storms that swept through Europe in March 2019 are initially estimated to be €740m, according to Perils, the Zurich-based data provider.

The extratropical cyclone affected the British Isles, and Western and Central Europe on 9 and 10 March 2019, killing three people, two in Germany and one in Belgium.

The two low-pressure systems associated with the event were named ‘Dragi’ and ‘Eberhard’ by the Free University of Berlin. Dragi was the weaker of the two, striking on 9 March, and was immediately followed by Eberhard on 10 March which affected a similar area across the British Isles, France, the Benelux states, Germany and Switzerland.

Perils said that as the two storms were so close in timing and geographical areas “it is not possible in most instances to allocate specific insured losses to either named system and as a result the event loss figure combines losses from both events”.

The data provider said the insurance industry loss from Dragi-Eberhard was “by far the largest in an otherwise benign 2018/2019 European winter storm season”.

“For the majority of the individual affected countries, the event loss return period was however not unusual, with the exception of Belgium, where the loss level caused by Dragi-Eberhard is expected to be reached or exceeded once every 10 years.”

Perils said it would publish an updated estimate of losses on 10 June 2019.

The storms also affected the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia; however, these countries are not covered by the Perils loss survey.

Prior to the ‘Dragi-Eberhard’ event, extratropical cyclone ‘Bennet’ hit mainly France, Germany and Switzerland on 4 March 2019. Perils said that this earlier weather system “did not exceed its reporting threshold of €200 million and has therefore been categorised as a non-qualifying event”