Economic losses from earthquakes in Turkey and Syria could amount to $4 billion or more, according to information released today by the Fitch consultancy.
According to the adviser, these economic losses are likely to “exceed two billion dollars (1.86 billion euros)” and “could reach four billion dollars (3.72 billion euros) or more”.
However, the sums insured are “much lower, perhaps around a billion dollars (928 million euros)”, the adviser said, “because of low insurance coverage in the affected regions”.
That is what the risk assessment company has stated the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Group (TCIP) was established after the 1999 Izmit earthquake, to cover earthquake damage to residential buildings in urban areas. Fitch noticed that though TCIP does not cover human losses, liability claims or indirect losses such as business interruption. Moreover, earthquake insurance is technically mandatory in Turkey, but is often not enforced in practice. As a result, many homes are uninsured, particularly in many of the affected areas where low household incomes limit access to these insurances.
Insurance coverage in affected parts of Syria is likely to be similarly low, mainly due to the economic fallout from the country’s civil war, which began in 2011.
According to Fitch, most of the insurance payouts resulting from the earthquake that hit the two countries will be borne by global reinsurers.
According to the latest data, earthquakesthe first with a magnitude of 7.8 on the open Richter scale, and the second with 7.5, caused at least 17,513 deaths – 14,351 in Turkey, according to Turkish Vice President Fuat Otkay, and 3,162 in Syria, according to official reports.
Source: DN
