Reinsurers Munich Re and Hannover Re believe it is still too early to estimate damage claims from Hurricane Irene.
“There is flooding and power outages. It is too early to estimate the damage,” said a Munich Re spokeswoman. Hannover Re also said it was too early for loss estimates.
Hurricane Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm on Sunday but still affected large areas of the U.S. East Coast, including New York City and New England.
Early estimates from risk modelling agencies suggest damage from the storm was less severe than initially feared. Modelling agency AIR Worldwide on Sunday had pencilled in insured losses of between $2 billion and $8 billion.
Insurance industry observers saw a loss of about $3 billion for the U.S. mainland, and a further $500 million for North Carolina alone.
Munich Re and Hannover Re shares rose more than 2 per cent in early trading on Monday.
Source : Reuters
