According to the Q4 CRESTA Industry Loss Index (CLIX) update, which provides data on non-US catastrophe events that have generated industry losses above $1 billion, 2024 was dominated by flood events, driving 78% of the total industry loss figure.
In terms of the overall figure, the international loss tally for billion-dollar events stands at $18.2 billion for 2024, slightly below the indexed long-term average of $19.9 billion.
2024 saw eight international (non-US) cat events with industry losses of more than $1 billion. This includes the Noto Earthquake in Japan, the Dubai Floods, the Rio Grande do Sul Floods, the Southern Germany Floods, the Calgary Hailstorm, Ex-Hurricane Debby Floods in Canada, Central Europe Floods, and the floods in Valencia.
The Hyôgo Hailstorms in Japan in April, and Typhoon Yagi in China and Vietnam in September currently remain marginally below the $1 billion threshold.
The largest non-US event in 2024 was the flooding in the Valencia region of Spain in late October. Currently, CRESTA estimates the industry loss at $3.9 billion for the event, making it the highest cat loss on record for the Spanish insurance market. The vast majority of the losses are covered by the “Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros,” the compulsory government scheme for natural catastrophe insurance in Spain.
Matthias Saenger, Manager at CRESTA CLIX, commented, “We are proud of what we have achieved with CRESTA CLIX since the service was launched in 2020. The database now contains industry loss information for more than 200 catastrophe events.
“The data has been regularly reviewed and updated, and is accessible in a clean and structured format, allowing underwriters and Cat researchers to focus on analytics rather than data cleansing. The CLIX team is looking forward to the launch of the PERILS EXTENDED service and we are convinced that the merger with PERILS CORE will benefit our users as it will provide single-source access to a comprehensive industry loss database.”
Christoph Oehy, Chief Executive Officer, PERILS, added, “In the past years, industry losses reported by CRESTA CLIX have been used as triggers in ILW transactions and in one Cat Bond, in addition to industry losses reported by PERILS.
“Moving forward, by having a single reporting agency this will greatly simplify this process for the risk transfer markets, which was a key consideration when we decided to combine the two reporting services under the PERILS umbrella.”
Starting January 2025, CRESTA’s CLIX service will be integrated into the PERILS product range as “PERILS EXTENDED,” making this the last quarterly update for CRESTA CLIX, complementing the existing PERILS data services which will be renamed “PERILS CORE.”
The post Flood events drive 78% of international industry losses in 2024: CRESTA appeared first on ReinsuranceNe.ws.