From Artemis, July 27:
Reported insured losses and reserve setting related to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic have now reached $20.5 billion, according to data collected by advisory PeriStrat LLC and augmented by our own research.
Zurich-based PeriStrat LLC, operated by Hans-Joachim Guenther, has been aggregating publicly available loss reports from insurance and reinsurance companies to give a picture of how the Covid-19 industry loss impact is developing.
We’ve now augmented that data with a few additions from our own research and listed it over on our sister site Reinsurance News, where you can analyse the data more closely.
The answer so far is slowly, compared to the industry loss estimates that tend to range anywhere from US $30 billion to over $100 billion, although consensus would suggest something around the US $50 billion to $70 billion range for the global property and casualty (P&C) insurance and reinsurance industry.
So far, Guenther’s PeriStrat data, added to our own analysis, tracks almost $20.5 billion of reported Covid-19 losses from across the insurance and reinsurance industry, with these reported numbers representing actual losses as well as IBNR reserves reported by re/insurers.
The estimate reported for the Lloyd’s of London market is top of the list currently, pegged at $3.65 billion by Guenther.....MUCH MORE
Following that is an estimate for insurer FM Global, who hasn’t actually reported anything itself as yet, but PeriStrat noted that communicable disease coverage FM Global offered in its standard policies aggregates to approximately $3bn in sub-limits.
After that are major players Swiss Re, AXA, Munich Re, Chubb, Zurich, Allianz and SCOR, all of which have reported more than half a billion dollars of expected Covid-19 impacts apiece....
*Travelers Insurance Is Suing Its Customers To Preempt Business Interruption Claims (TRV)
Related:
July 17
Re/insurance: "U.S. riot losses accelerated & worsened by pandemic..."
June 3
Insurance: AXA cites Business Interruption as “material” in EUR 1.2bn Covid-19 Property/casualty loss estimate
May 24
Insurance Oh-Oh: "French court orders insurer to pay restaurant’s business interruption losses from coronavirus".
March 31
P&C: Business Interruption Insurance—Here Come the Lawyers
April 14
Insurance:"Anticipated Coronavirus Claims Scenarios Across Major Coverage Lines"
If interested see also:
Re/Insurance: "Berkshire Hathaway will write pandemic cover 'at the right price', Buffett says" (BRK)
As with terrorism insurance Warren would rather that governments take the risks,* the downside is just so huge....
Insurance Trade Groups: "Pandemics simply are not insurable risk..."
Whitney Tilson: "Berkshire's Exposure To Business Interruption Insurance" (BRK)
Insurance:"Anticipated Coronavirus Claims Scenarios Across Major Coverage Lines"
P&C: Business Interruption Insurance—Here Come the Lawyers
Insurance Oh-Oh: "French court orders insurer to pay restaurant’s business interruption losses from coronavirus".
Insurance: "Coronavirus to be largest industry loss ever: Chubb’s Greenberg & Lloyd’s Neal"
The last line is:
"Lloyd’s has set aside £15 million to fund research into how pandemics and other big events can be better dealt with in future."As the kids say: "You had one job..."
Re/Insurance: "Pandemic could inflate hurricane industry losses by up to 20%..."
Of course the jackpot for risk modelers is to have a volcano go off triggering an earthquake leading to the collapse of an underwater seamount, causing a tsunami as a hurricane roars through a pandemic zone.
Most likely location for this unlikely occasion: the Lesser Antilles.
Unlike Fukushima, no nukes though.
So it would be hard to recreate the typhoon approaching the nuke plant devastated by tsunami caused by the earthquake* but, but volcano and pandemic!
I believe for the remainder of 2020 our motto should be "Hey, it could be worse!""
