Berenberg has seen a lot of stuff. They celebrated their 400th anniversary in 1990.
Two from Artemis. First up, July 20:
The insurance and reinsurance industry loss from recent European flooding could be as much as US $3 billion, according to an early estimate from analysts at investment bank Berenberg, although our sources in the industry are suggesting it could be higher still once all damage claims are counted.
As we explained yesterday, a unit of insurance and reinsurance broking giant Aon has said the industry loss is likely in the multiple billions of Euros.
Berenberg’s estimate of between US $2 billion to as much as $3 billion is aligned with some early chatter in the reinsurance market, but it remains early days and there is the chance the high-end of this range is challenged, especially as floods have been ingoing in Austria over the last day or so.
These floods are a “poor start to Q3, especially for catastrophe-exposed companies,” the analysts at Berenberg explained.
The first-half has seen catastrophe losses fall below average, it is thought, despite the heavy toll from US winter storms, as we explained recently here.
“The European floods are estimated to have cost the reinsurance industry several billions of dollars; we estimate between $2bn-3bn,” Berenberg’s analyst team wrote.
Adding that, “The companies we believe are most exposed to European flood events are likely to be Ageas, Allianz, AXA, Baloise, Generali, Helvetia, Talanz and Zurich.”
Given the insurers mentioned above, it’s clear Berenberg is referring to the loss for the insurance and reinsurance industry, not just reinsurers.
On reinsurance firms, the analysts said, “Losses to primary insurers are unlikely to be large enough to trigger single event-based reinsurance coverage, and consequently losses to the reinsurers will be relatively small when looking at the European floods in isolation. However....
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And the July 19 story:
European flood losses expected in the multiple billions of Euros: Aon
