Storm Joachim May Cost Insurers 300 Million Euros, Perils Says

Property insurers may face 300 million euros ($390 million) in costs from windstorm Joachim, which hit northern France, Germany and Switzerland in December, according to data provider Perils AG.

“The majority of the losses occurred in France,” Zurich- based Perils, an insurance industry initiative founded in 2009 to aggregate European data on natural-disaster losses, said in an e-mailed statement today.

The insurance industry’s most expensive storm on record in Europe was winter storm Lothar, which caused $5.9 billion in insured losses in 1999, according to estimates by reinsurer Munich Re. Kyrill, which battered countries including the U.K., the Netherlands and Germany in January 2007, caused $5.8 billion in insured losses while Xynthia, which hit western Europe in February 2010, cost the industry $3.1 billion.

To contact the reporter on this story: Oliver Suess in Munich at osuess@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Frank Connelly at fconnelly@bloomberg.net; Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net