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The cost of the flood of the century: Destroyed cars in Dernau
Photo: Christoph Hardt / imago images / Future Image
After the flood disaster in the Rhineland and the Eifel, German insurers have to bear damage of up to 5.7 billion euros.
This was the result of a survey by the financial supervisory authority Bafin.
According to an initial assessment of the primary insurers, in the worst case damage of around 5.7 billion euros is to be expected, of which around four billion euros are reinsured, "said the chief insurance supervisor of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bafin), Frank Grund.
The industry association GDV had recently only assumed a total loss of 4.5 to 5.5 billion euros.
In the worst case, German reinsurers expected a net burden of around one billion euros, said Grund.
The Bonn authority has now questioned more than 150 primary insurers and 28 reinsurers - and found significantly higher losses.
The net burden of the primary insurers in the residential building insurance is around 700 million euros, in the household contents insurance and in the motor vehicle comprehensive insurance around 200 million euros each, half a billion euros are accounted for by storm and business interruption policies.
Destruction "far worse than feared"
Nevertheless, the flood disaster in mid-July did not threaten the existence of any insurer, said the Bafin Executive Director, which the past few weeks had also shown.
From the previous reports it can be seen that there was no threat to the existence of the company, "neither with property and casualty insurers nor with reinsurers".
The cooperative R + V Versicherung had tripled its loss estimate for the flash floods to around 470 million euros.
"We top up our loss reserves every day, because the appraisers find out during the on-site inspection that the damage is often far worse than feared," said R + V boss Norbert Rollinger.
rai / Reuters