Turkiye: Currency fluctuations pose additional complications in February quake claims
Source: Middle East Insurance Review | Sep 2023
The insured property market loss for the 6 February Kahramanmaras Earthquake Sequence is estimated at TRY92.8bn ($3.43bn) at the current exchange rate, said PERILS.
PERILS released its third loss estimate for the Kahramanmaras Earthquake Sequence which is based on loss data collected from affected insurance companies. This third estimate of the insured property market loss compares to the previous PERILS estimates of TRY86.4bn issued three months after the event, and TRY65.4bn issued six weeks after the event.
PERILS CEO Luzi Hitz said, “At current exchange rates, TRY92.8bn translates to approximately $3.4bn or EUR3.1bn. However, in February 2023 when the earthquakes struck, TRY92.8bn equated to approximately $4.9bn or EUR4.6bn. Currency fluctuation is one example of the many challenges facing the Turkish insurance market as it continues to successfully process an unprecedented number of insurance claims from this event.”
The loss information in this third report provides a breakdown of property losses by province, with the data further divided by residential and commercial lines and loss amounts split into buildings, contents and business interruption losses.
According to the PERILS coverage definition for Turkiye, the numbers include losses from the property line of business. Losses from other lines of business, as well as losses from Syria, are not included. M