AXIS issues California wildfire damage estimate

AXIS Capital Holdings has estimated that its pre-tax loss from California wildfires could be between $125 million and $150 million.

The losses were from the major wildfires that burned across Northern and Southern California in November and December 2018.

AXIS said that the loss estimated is net of estimated recoveries from reinsurance and retrocessional covers and including the impact of estimated reinstatement premiums. The estimate includes losses from aggregate excess of loss reinsurance treaties that were also impacted by losses from other 2018 catastrophe and weather-related events. The company's loss estimate is consistent with industry insured losses of up to $20 billion.

AXIS said that its preliminary pre-tax loss estimate for hurricane Michael is currently at the upper end of the previously disclosed range of $100 million to $120 million. The firm noted that due to the nature of this event, the actual net ultimate amount of losses for hurricane Michael may be materially different from this current estimate.