Zurich-domiciled catastrophe insurance data provider, PERILS, has upped the industry loss for its third estimate for extratropical windstorm “Éowyn”, also known as “Gilles”, to €747 million from €696 million in April.
The third estimate compares to the previous loss estimates of €619 million in March, six weeks post the event date and the April estimate, three months after the event end date.
PERILS explained that the loss estimate covers the property lines of business and is based on loss data collected from affected insurers.
Additionally, the loss information in the third report provides a breakdown of property losses by CRESTA zones, with the data further bifurcated into personal lines, which contributed 51% of the total industry loss and commercial lines, adding the other 49%.
PERILS stated, “In combination with the PERILS industry exposure database, available in identical resolution, the industry loss footprint provides valuable new information on the wind-vulnerability of insured property risks in the UK and Ireland.”
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Windstorm Éowyn was a very intense extratropical cyclone with very strong winds, with a record-breaking wind gust of 185 km/h measured at Mace Head in County Galway in Ireland, and 173 km/h was measured on the Cairnwell mountain in the Eastern Highlands of Scotland.
The storm generated very strong winds affecting the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the Central Belt of Scotland, which occurred on January 24-25th, 2025.
At €747 million, Éowyn’s impact on the industry is not unusual from a European perspective, with windstorm losses of this size occurring once every 1-2 years.
However, for the Republic of Ireland, Éowyn marks the biggest windstorm loss for at least 45 years, whereas for the UK, it is the biggest since February 2022, reported PERILS.
Luzi Hitz, Product Manager at PERILS, commented, “Windstorm Éowyn was a meteorological textbook example of a European extratropical cyclone. It initially formed over the Gulf of Mexico, was rapidly transported over the North Atlantic by a powerful jet stream and underwent explosive cyclogenesis (also known as a “bomb cyclone”) before striking the British Isles on 24 January 2025. At Mace Head in County Galway in Ireland, a record-breaking gust of 185km/h was measured, easily matching wind speeds usually associated with hurricanes and typhoons.”
He added, “Such severe winds are of course a rare occurrence and make Éowyn a particularly valuable event to learn from and calibrate vulnerability functions at extreme gust speeds. This will help to anchor Cat models more securely to the reality of such severe winds and in turn contribute to more accurate outputs, which is one of the main goals of our work.”
In line with the PERILS reporting schedule, a fourth update of the market loss from Windstorm Éowyn will be released on January 25th, 2026, twelve months after the event end date.
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