Kyrill a Reminder of Pan-European Windstorm Risk
NEWARK, Calif., Jan. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Risk Management Solutions
(RMS), has today released an initial estimate of euro 3-5 billion for
insured losses from Windstorm Kyrill, which produced a wide swath of
damaging winds across Europe on January 18, 2007. Windstorm Kyrill was the
most damaging storm to affect Europe for several years, causing widespread,
consistent damage across the U.K., through Belgium and the Netherlands,
Germany, Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Kyrill developed in the mid-Atlantic on Wednesday, January 17, and
swept across the U.K. while deepening off the coast of Northern Ireland
early on Thursday morning. After losing strength while passing over the
U.K., Kyrill re-intensified over Denmark, with severe consequences for
Germany and countries further east.
Windstorm Kyrill caused damage over a broader area and was more intense
than Windstorm Jeannette in 2002, which was the last storm to affect these
countries and caused a total insurance bill of over euro 1 billion. In the
U.K., Kyrill was the most damaging storm since Windstorm Daria in January
1990, but was much less intense. RMS estimates that a repeat of Daria in
the U.K. today would cause approximately euro 6 billion in insured losses.
"While the windspeeds caused by Windstorm Kyrill can not be ranked
alongside the major 1999 Windstorms, Lothar, Anatol and Martin, and the
losses are low compared to what would be caused today by a storm such as
Daria, Kyrill by nature of its size is a reminder of the loss potential
from storms that can impact multiple countries across Europe," said Dr.
Barbara Page, lead model manager for European windstorm modeling. "Kyrill
subjected the European building stock to widespread damaging winds, but not
of the intensity experienced during the 1999 storms."
The breakdown of losses shows that most of the damage was caused in the
U.K. and Germany, and is likely to come from residential and motor losses.
Significant power outages affecting hundreds of thousands of people will
also contribute to down-times and losses from frozen goods. In addition,
transport was severely disrupted with the high winds and power outages
halting many rail networks and hampering flying conditions. RMS is
collecting damage observations and will be working extensively with
European insurers to build on our historically thorough research into the
performance of the European building stock.
RMS generated the estimate of losses by re-constructing the footprint
of Windstorm Kyrill using observation data from the dense network of
stations maintained by individual country meteorological agencies, and
modeling property-related losses within the updated RMS(R) Europe Windstorm
Model released in spring 2006. The update focused on all components of
modeling, including embedding the latest numerical methodologies into
modeling windstorms, together with a detailed understanding of regional
variations in European building stock.
About RMS
Risk Management Solutions, Inc. is the world's largest leading provider
of products and services for catastrophe, weather, and enterprise risk
management. More than 400 leading insurers, reinsurers, trading companies,
and other financial institutions rely on RMS models to quantify, manage,
and transfer risk. Founded at Stanford University in 1988, RMS serves
clients today from offices in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Bermuda. For
more information, visit our web site at http://www.rms.com.
Editorial Contacts:
Mark Prindle
TorranceCo, New York
1-212-691-5860
mprindle@torranceco.com
Shannon McKay
RMS, California
1-510-505-3257
shannon.mckay@rms.com
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