Extreme weather phenomena this summer have produced costly damages at Gothaer Insurance

The extreme weather was the main reason for claim files in the non-agricultural sector in June and July ar Gothaer Insurance. 40 percent of the claims were recorded on non-agricultural insurance and the biggest damage cost was RON 36.444.

Even though we have been talking for years about summers with extreme weather, we can see a growing frequency of the phenomena. Major damage is recorded, as expected, in the agricultural sector. However, weather phenomena also cause damage to other insurance segments. In June and July, at Gothaer Insurance Reinsurance, 40 percent of the 2018 damage files were recorded on non-agricultural insurance claims due to meteorological phenomena. In 30 percent of cases, torrential rains were the ones that caused the most damage.

The insurance segments covered by these damages include property insurance, property insurance for SMEs – small and medium-sized enterprises and non-registered technology (UTN). Among the risks, which led to the opening of damage files, are the torrential rain, the flood, but also the hail and storms with their phenomena.

The total number of claims filed by Gothaer on the mentioned segments in the period January – August 2018 is 136, the total amount of damages paid being of RON 231,369. The biggest damage paid on the non-automotive segment in the period January – August was worth RON 36,444 and represents compensation for the broken roof of a farm.

“It is not an easy year in terms of damage. We are experiencing extreme weather phenomena that we can not predict. Fortunately for Gothaer, we have invested a lot of time and resources in process optimization, precisely because in such situations we can quickly intervene and be right next to our customers when they have damage. Thus, 94 percent of the non-automotive damage records registered in 2018 are already paid, and for these cases, the average settlement time from the event’s endorsement to the time of payment was 37 days,” says Alin Enescu, head of Department Damage, Gothaer Insurance Reinsurance.

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Neither the Gothaer-assured vehicles have escaped unaffected by the weather phenomena this summer. The hail was the main element that caused damage, but also the storms that led to the trees breaking and falling on the cars. The repair of a damaged hail car cost an average of RON 4,000.

As expected, the agricultural insurance segment was affected by the weather phenomena of this summer. The amount of agricultural damages approved at Gothaer by the end of August is almost RON 16 million. The risks that caused the most damage to the agricultural insurance segment were hail and heavy rain, with crops most affected being rape. Regarding the regional distribution of damages, most of them occurred in Dolj county, followed by Constanta.

An internal Gothaer analysis reveals that a single day of torrential rain affected about 3,300 ha of insured crops this summer, causing damage worth more than one million lei. Gothaer has already reimbursed over RON 3.3 million for damages produced only this season on the agricultural insurance segment.

Regarding the number of claims files approved on the agricultural segment between January and August 2018, it is up 28 percent over the same period of the previous year. The months of most notifications were June, followed by July, and the average payment time was kept for a maximum of 4 days (from the date of submission of the last document to the date of payment).