Hurricane Matthew

At 5pm Zurich time, Hurricane Matthew was located just 40 km west of Nassau over the Bahamas with maximum sustained winds of about 220 km/h with higher gusts. This makes Matthew a category 4 hurricane according to the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale. Hurricane force winds (starting at sustained winds of about 120 km/h) extend outward up to about 95 km from the centre and tropical storm force winds (starting at about 65 km/h) extend outward up to 260 km.

Hurricane Matthew is expected to get close to the Florida coast tomorrow, Friday 7 October, and move along the coast from Melbourne and Palm Bay to Jacksonville. Track forecasts then take Matthew out to the sea, slowly moving away from the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina. No impact on North Carolina is expected according the current forecasts.

We have evaluated the events provided by the modelling agencies and none seem to be an acceptably close fit to the range of forecast tracks. The suggested modelling events either make landfall or stay too far from the coast. The resulting loss estimates are therefore, in our opinion, not meaningful and give too varying and inaccurate range of possible underlying insured loss values. We therefore continue to observe and analyse the situation and will communicate estimates as soon as we feel confident that they have any material accuracy.

Thursday, 06 October 2016