2023-11-03 00:00:57
Trees fell on cars, roofs torn off, broken windows… It will take a few days to have a global and precise vision of the extent of the damage after the passage of storm Ciaran. But, just a few hours after the end of this exceptional meteorological episode, it is already possible to have an idea of the bill that the insurance companies will have to pay.
According to the company Risk Weather Tech, which works in particular with the Covéa group (Maaf, MMA, GMF) or the Central Reinsurance Fund, the number of insured losses should ultimately be between 230,000 and 270,000 and the cost reach 370 to 480 million euros for companies. This is more than storm Alex and its 210 million euros of insured damage in October 2020 but much less than the 1.5 billion euros for Xynthia in February 2010 or the 1.7 billion for Klaus in January 2009.
“We have regionalized loss models – because 120 km/h of wind in Normandy does not cause the same damage as in the Landes – and we feed them with weather forecasts ahead of the storm or with data from observation by Météo France after its passage,” deciphers Gilles André, boss of Risk Weather Tech.
VIDEO. Bent crane, uprooted trees, gusts over 200 km/h… the devastating passage of storm Ciaran
After an initial estimate made at 11 a.m. this Thursday, November 2, and putting the damage at between 320 and 430 million euros, the foreseeable bill was finally revised upwards at 6 p.m. after the storm passed through Hauts-de-Nord. France “370 to 480 million euros is around 50% of the average annual storm, hail and snow losses,” continues the specialist. Data which is used by insurers to size their teams and give them visibility, as well as reinsurers, on the subsequent cost of damage.
“But we escaped the worst,” explains Gilles André, relieved. There was a meteorological bomb phenomenon with a very rapid deepening of the depression. If this had taken place on the continent, above the Paris region as in 1999 with Lothar, it would have been catastrophic. For Ciaran, the digging was done at sea and only the Channel coasts, quite resilient in relation to storms, suffered the intensification of the phenomenon. »
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