British flood insurance losses at five-year high

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10 December 2012

UK flood insurance losses for the year are estimated at £1 billion ($1.53 billion), after torrential rain killed four people and damaged more than 1100 houses last month.

It will be the costliest flood year since 2007, Aon Benfield subsidiary Impact Forecasting says.

PricewaterhouseCoopers puts the insurance cost from last month’s deluge at about £500 million ($768 million).

Storms that hit southeast Queensland and northern NSW are expected to cost insurers $100 million, Impact’s November catastrophe report says. Damage from severe weather in WA at the end of the month will also run into the millions of dollars.

Hurricane Sandy has become the second-costliest storm in US history, behind Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the report says.

Sandy has caused at least $US62 billion ($59 billion) in economic losses.