Loss Estimates for European Wind Storm Released

Boston-based Applied Insurance Research (AIR) and California-based Risk Management Solutions (RMS), two national catastrophe modeling firms, have provided estimates of insured losses for a recent European extra-tropical cyclone.

The losses resulted from an intense storm, which raged through northern Europe nearly two weeks ago, causing extensive damage in the United Kingdom, Denmark and Germany.

RMS says total insured losses caused by Orkan Anatol's hurricane force winds across northern Europe on December 3 and 4 at $300-500 million. RMS says its model includes over 17,000 simulations of possible windstorm events, and is the only model to incorporate the impact of storm surge.

AIR posted its estimates directly on its ALERT web site. The company says its loss scenarios can be viewed in a number of formats, including detailed animated maps. Files containing data on simulated industry losses can be downloaded directly from the site for use in AIR's software applications, allowing client companies to determine their own expected losses. In addition to providing ALERT to its software clients AIR offers this service on a subscription basis.

According to RMS, Orkan Anatol's damaging winds swept across the northern tip of Germany, southern Denmark, southern Sweden, Poland, and the Baltic states, killing 17 people, causing power outages, and closing airports, bridges, and railways. The worst effects of the storm were felt in Denmark, where the Danish Meteorological Institute described the storm as the `worst this century', and record winds gusted up to 110 mph. In Sweden a nuclear power station was shut down.

AIR says it has dispatched a post-disaster field team to the Ribe region of Denmark to assess the damage caused by the storm. AIR engineers will join with local wind engineering experts to perform a detailed survey of both structural and non-structural damage.