AXIS warns of cat-related losses of up to $175m

AXIS Capital Holdings expects to make a preliminary pre-tax loss of between $150 million and $175 million on its exposures to Hurricane Dorian, Japanese typhoons and other weather-related events, the re/insurer has warned.

The estimate is net of estimated recoveries from reinsurance and retrocessional covers, and includes the impact of estimated reinstatement premiums. It also includes full limit losses from aggregate excess of loss reinsurance treaties that were also impacted by other 2019 catastrophe and weather-related events.

AXIS’ loss estimate is based on its ground-up assessment of losses from individual contracts and treaties exposed to the affected regions, including preliminary information from clients, brokers and loss adjusters. It also took into account industry insured loss estimates, market share analyses and catastrophe modeling analyses.

The estimate is consistent with industry insured losses of approximately $6 billion for Hurricane Dorian and $8 billion for Q3 Japanese typhoons.

Due to the complexity of loss assessment, the preliminary nature of the information available and other factors contributing to the losses, the actual net ultimate amount of losses for these events may differ materially from this current estimate, AXIS warned.