Insurance firms face 7b euro bill from winter storm
Afp, Frankfurt
The deadly winter storm that lashed much of northern Europe last week will cost the insurance industry between five and seven billion euros, Germany's Munich Re said Friday. The company, the world's second-largest reinsurer, said in a statement that it alone would face a pre-tax burden of up to 600 million euros (775 million dollars). It said Germany faced the biggest damage claims but that European neighbors had also been hit hard. Swiss Re estimated earlier Friday that the storm, known in some countries as Kyrill, would cost the insurance industry up to 3.5 billion euros. Storm-related accidents caused the deaths of at least 47 people across Europe since last week, including 13 people in Britain, which suffered its worst storm in 17 years, with winds reaching 160 kilometers (100 miles) per hour. Eleven people were killed in Germany, seven in the Netherlands, six in Poland, four in the Czech Republic, three in France, two in Belgium and one in Ukraine. The storm caused several hundreds of millions of euros of damage and left more than two million homes without electricity.
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