Insured losses for Italian earthquake hit $127 million: Perils

Perils A.G. has issued a final insured loss estimate of €108 million ($127.0 million) for the earthquake that hit central Italy in August 2016.

The revised estimate increased significantly from an earlier loss estimate of €66 million, which was issued by Perils in November, based on loss data collected from insurance companies, the Zurich-based catastrophe loss data company said Thursday in a statement. The earthquake’s epicenter was located near the borders of the Lazio, Marche and Umbria regions of Italy.

While this loss estimate is significantly below Perils’ standard €200 million loss capture trigger for European events, the company captured the data given the significant socioeconomic impact of the earthquake, according to Perils.

The Italian Civil Protection Agency estimated the economic losses from the event were €7.1 billion, meaning only 1.5% of the overall economic losses were insured based on the Perils loss estimate. In comparison, the Perils projection of the insured loss of €1.24 billion from the Emilia-Romagna earthquakes in 2012 represented 9.3% of the total rebuilding costs of €13.3 billion estimated by the National Council of Engineers. The difference in these figures reflects the significant variation in earthquake insurance penetration levels across Italy, according to Perils.

The final loss report for a series of earthquakes that hit a similar region in Central Italy in October of last year will be released by Perils on Oct. 26.

Earlier this week, Perils disclosed that its third loss estimate for Windstorm Thomas, also known as Doris, which affected the British Isles, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany in February, was unchanged from the previous loss estimate of €249 million issued in May. A fourth loss estimate for Thomas will be published in February 2018.