’It is likely the warming climate will drive a rise in the frequency of winter flood events,’ says product manager
Perils has disclosed its third industry loss estimate for bad weather triggered by storms Babet and Aline.
The two storms, which are defined by Perils as low pressure systems, brought heavy rains and strong winds to the British Isles and northwestern Europe in October 2023.
Back in December, it estimated losses of €509m (£439m) and in January, this figure rose to €683m (£590m).
Perils said the new industry event loss figure currently stood at €691m (£597m).
The majority of the losses occurred in the UK and were mainly flood-related.
Luzi Hitz, product manager at Perils, said: “It has been six months since the Babet-Aline Floods and during that period, many parts of Europe, and particularly the UK and Ireland, have continued to experience persistent extreme wind and rainfall events.
“The British Isles witnessed a record number of named storm systems, many bringing extensive rainfall leading to flooding.”
Final update
The loss estimates cover the property line of business and are based on loss data collected from the affected insurance markets.
Read: Storms and inflation drive rise in average cost of building insurance claims
Read: Flood damage reported to insurer after storm nears £10m
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A final update of the market loss from the Babet-Aline floods and storms will be made available on 22 October 2024.
Hitz said that it was ”likely the warming climate will drive a rise in the frequency of winter flood events”.
“While the region [British Isles] has seen major winter floods in the past, such as the Desmond and Eva-Frank Floods in December 2015, given milder autumn and winter temperatures, there is a greater capacity for water storage in the atmosphere, which tends to precipitate as rain rather than snow.
”It is therefore likely the warming climate will drive a rise in the frequency of winter flood events.”
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