By Tom Sims and Paul Arnold
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Reinsurance company Swiss Re said on Thursday that claims from wildfires in Los Angeles would be less than $700 million and would impact its first quarter results, the latest European reinsurer to disclose a hit from the January blaze.
The wildfires killed more than two dozen people and destroyed or damaged more than 16,000 structures, charring an area bigger than Paris.
Swiss Re’s expected claims are less than those foreseen by its larger competitor Munich Re, which on Wednesday said it was factoring in about 1.2 billion euros ($1.26 billion) in losses, representing the biggest hit reported so far by a single European reinsurer for the catastrophe.
Analysts have estimated insurance claims across the industry could total as much as $45 billion for the blaze. Hannover Re, another German reinsurer, has said that it could face claims amounting to 700 million euros.
Fitch, the credit ratings company, has said that European insurers had reduced exposure to California after a spate of fires in 2017 and 2018 but would still be “materially affected” by the 2025 fires because of their scale.
Swiss Re provided the estimate as part of its 2024 earnings report, which showed a 3.1% rise in net profit from a year earlier.
Net profit was $3.24 billion, compared with $3.14 billion in 2023. Analysts had expected a profit of $3.13 billion, according to a consensus forecast.
($1 = 0.9556 euros)
(Reporting by Tom Sims and Paul Arnold, Editing by Friederike Heine and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
