The bill is heavy. The Ciaran and Domingos storms caused some 1.3 billion euros in damage, according to an estimate published on Monday, November 13, by the France Insurers Federation, one of the largest financial results linked to storms in France.
“Excluding recent floods in the Pas-de-Calais and Nord departments”, “the bad weather caused a total of 517,000 claims” and “the total cost amounts to 1.3 billion euros”, according to a press release. “Ciaran and Domingos already rank 5th among the most devastating storms in mainland France,” explains France Assureurs.
Lothar and Martin, which swept across France at the end of December 1999, were by far the most devastating: 92 people were killed and the damage cost insurers 7 billion euros at the time, i.e. The equivalent of 13.8 billion euros today, taking into account inflation, according to France Assureurs.
Then came Daria, Herta and Vivian in 1990 (3.4 billion in current euros), Klaus and Quinten in 2009 (2.6 billion) and Xynthia in 2010 (2.0 billion). More recently, the damage from storm Alex, which devastated the hinterland of Nice and Menton on October 2, 2020, was estimated at at least one billion euros. For Hurricane Irma, which swept the islands of Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélémy in September 2017, the total cost of damage was estimated at three billion euros, including 1.9 for insured property.
91% of losses concern private homes
For Ciaran and Domingos, “91% of losses concern private homes, 5% concern professional, agricultural and local authority property and finally 4% concern automobiles”, specifies the sector federation.
Out of 1.3 billion euros of damage, “84% concerns private homes, 12% professional, agricultural and local authority property and 4% automobiles”.
The time limit for declaring a disaster is usually five days and ten days if the state of natural disaster is recognized by order published in the Official Journal. But insurers have committed to extending this deadline until December 1.