View this article online: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2017/10/27/469576.htm
The property insurance market’s losses from the series of earthquakes to hit Central Italy between Oct. 26 and Oct. 30, 2016 has risen to €208 million (US$244.4 million), according to PERILS, the independent Zurich-based organization that provides industry wide catastrophe insurance data.
An earlier loss estimate of €125 million ($146.9 million) was issued by PERILS on Jan. 26, 2017, three months after the event.
PERILS’ loss estimate is based on loss data collected from a majority of the insurance companies active in Italy.
The October 2016 earthquake series in Italy consisted of three major tremblors with moment magnitudes of Mw 5.4, 5.9 and 6.5 according to the Italian Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, said PERILS.
PERILS noted that these quakes affected the regions of Lazio, Marche and Umbria, as well as many of the areas that had been struck two months earlier by the Mw 6.0 earthquake of Aug. 24, 2016.
The Italian Civil Protection Agency estimates the economic losses from the October earthquake series at €6.5 billion ($7.6 billion). Based on the PERILS’ revised loss estimate of €208 million, this means that 1.3 percent of the overall economic loss was insured.
For comparison, the insured loss of the Aug. 24 earthquake, which affected a similar area, amounted to €108 million ($126.9 million) or 1.5 percent of total estimated economic costs of €7.1 billion ($8.3 billion), while the insured loss from the Emilia-Romagna earthquakes in Northern Italy in 2012 amounted to €1.24 billion ($1.46 billion), or 9.3 percent of total estimated rebuilding costs of €13.3 billion ($15.6 billion).
The differences in the ratios of insured vs. economic losses can be attributed to the significant variation in earthquake insurance penetration across Italy, PERILS said.
In this final loss report, the market loss data are available by CRESTA zone (province) and property line of business, PERILS explained. This loss footprint information is complemented by instrumental shaking intensities, peak ground accelerations and loss ratios showing the incurred losses from the earthquake as a percentage of the sums insured.
Source: PERILS