An outbreak of severe thunderstorms affected Western and Central Europe during the first half of the month, with overall economic losses across Central Europe alone listed in excess of €2 billion.
The results were collated by Impact Forecasting, the catastrophe model development centre at Aon Benfield, in the latest edition of its monthly Global Catastrophe Recap report.
The storms caused significant hail damage in parts of Germany, France and Belgium, and killed at least six people in Germany.
The French Federation of Insurance Companies noted that 363,000 residential, automobile and business claims had been filed in France alone as a result of the severe weather, with insurance payouts forecast at €900 million.
The losses marked the second consecutive summer in which parts of Europe have endured major insured losses as a result of hail. In 2013, insurers paid more than £4 billion in claims from hailstorms, mostly in Germany and France.
Adam Podlaha, head of Impact Forecasting at Aon, said: "For the second year running, hail-inducing thunderstorms have caused significant damage during the summer months in Europe.”
“Given the recent level of losses for this peril, both in Europe and in the US, there is an increasing opportunity for the development of models to help insurers more accurately evaluate their exposures.”
“With exponential advances in computing power, model developers will gradually be able to address the challenge of modelling this natural hazard at the high spatial resolution required to make the results meaningful."
The US endured several rounds of convective weather during June, with tornadoes, hail and damaging winds leading to aggregate economic losses expected to reach the multi-billions of dollars, with insurance losses well exceeding the $1 billion threshold.
Elsewhere during the month, monsoonal rains caused significant damage in China, killing dozens of people and resulting in economic losses of more than $2 billion.
