Zurich-based catastrophe insurance data provider PERILS AG has published a preliminary estimate of industry losses from floods in Central Europe and Italy between September 14 and 20, 2024, estimating a total of €1.886 billion. As a reminder, the low-pressure system Boris (also known as Anette) caused prolonged heavy rainfall over a very large area in Central Europe in mid-September, leading to flooding in the Danube, Elbe, Oder and Vistula river basins. According to PERILS, most of the losses occurred in Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland, which accounted for about 95% of the industry's losses, followed by Italy and Slovakia.

Hungary and Romania were also affected, but to a much lesser extent. In total, an estimated 30,000 people have been evacuated and 28 people have died due to flooding. Christophe Ouyi, CEO of PERILS, commented, “This widespread flooding in Europe has caused significant damage over a large area. “However, the combination of early flood warnings and active flood management before and during the event, combined with other loss prevention measures implemented after other major floods in Europe, including in 1997, 2002 and 2013, helped to avoid an even worse disaster.”

PERILS also announced that it will integrate its CRESTA CLIX industry loss reporting service into its current product offering, effective January 1, 2025. “The initial industry loss report for the September 2024 Central European floods was prepared by combining the two methodologies to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach,” the catastrophe insurance data provider said. Ojhi continued: “PERILS used this event to illustrate how the upcoming integration of the CRESTA CLIX methodology into PERILS will work. This is an early example of how PERILS will report on events as of January 1, 2025, and demonstrates the benefits of being able to provide more comprehensive industry event loss data from a single source for the re/insurance sector.”