Zurich-based catastrophe insurance data provider PERILS has updated its industry loss estimate for the floods in Central Europe and Italy from September 14–20, 2024, raising the total to €2.08 billion from the initial estimate of €1.886 billion released last month.
Most of the losses were concentrated in Austria, the Czech Republic, and Poland, with Italy and Slovakia also affected.
The mid-September floods were triggered by low-pressure system Boris (also known as Anett), which followed a typical Vb track from the Mediterranean to Central Europe, bringing prolonged heavy rainfall.
This caused severe flooding in eastern Austria, central and eastern Czech Republic, and southwestern Poland. Unusually, Boris then shifted back towards central Italy, continuing to produce heavy rains and flooding. The excessive rainfall was linked to record-high sea surface temperatures in the Mediterranean, which increased atmospheric moisture levels.
Christoph Oehy, CEO of PERILS, commented, “Europe has to date experienced three flood events in 2024 which have generated major losses for the insurance industry. These include the floods in southern Germany in June, in Central Europe in September, and most recently in the Valenica region of Spain in October. Together these events have caused industry losses of more than EUR 7 billion, a figure only topped by the Bernd floods of July 2021, and clearly demonstrate the increasingly critical role of the European insurance industry in recovery efforts following major flood disasters.”
He continued, “As with our first loss report for the Central Europe Floods, we have combined the PERILS and CRESTA CLIX methodologies to produce the industry loss number for each of the affected countries. This methodology will be applied by PERILS to all events from 1 January 2025 onwards and today’s estimate helps to demonstrate the benefits of having a single source for international Cat industry losses.”
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