Insurance loss model vs. meteorological loss index – how comparable are their loss estimates for European windstorms?

Moemken, Julia; Alifdini, Inovasita; Ramos, Alexandre M.; Georgiadis, Alexandros; Brocklehurst, Aidan; Braun, Lukas; Pinto, Joaquim G.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3445-2024

Articles | Volume 24, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3445-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3445-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 10

Research article

|

08 Oct 2024

Research article |

| 08 Oct 2024

Insurance loss model vs. meteorological loss index – how comparable are their loss estimates for European windstorms?

Julia Moemken, Inovasita Alifdini, Alexandre M. Ramos, Alexandros Georgiadis, Aidan Brocklehurst, Lukas Braun, and Joaquim G. Pinto

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3445-2024-supplement

Data sets

Complete ERA5 from 1940: Fifth generation of ECMWF atmospheric reanalyses of the global climate H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.143582cf

ERA-Interim global atmospheric reanalysis D. P. Dee et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.f2f5241d

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Short summary

European windstorms regularly cause damage to natural and human-made environments, leading to high socio-economic losses. For the first time, we compare estimates of these losses using a meteorological loss index (LI) and the insurance loss (catastrophe) model of Aon Impact Forecasting. We find that LI underestimates high-impact windstorms compared to the insurance model. Nonetheless, due to its simplicity, LI is an effective index, suitable for estimating impacts and ranking storm events.