According to a first preliminary estimate, the floods in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg have caused insured losses of around two billion euros. As the German Insurance Association (GDV) announced in Berlin on Friday, the damage is around ten times as high as the Whitsun floods in Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate. Since the floods have not yet receded, particularly on the Danube, the estimate still contains a certain degree of uncertainty, it said.
GDV General Manager Jörg Asmussen explained that once the flooding is over, the association will again ask its member companies about the extent of the damage. The top priority now is to help those affected quickly and efficiently.
The floods in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, which are not yet completely over, had significantly greater economic consequences than the Whitsun floods in Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate, with insured losses of around 200 million euros. According to the GDV, the floods in northern and central Germany around the turn of the year were also of a similar magnitude.
The most serious natural disaster to date was the so-called July flood of 2021, which caused devastation in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia in particular. At that time, insured damage of almost nine billion euros was caused. In addition to insured damage, there is always uninsured damage – Bavaria alone provided just one hundred million euros to deal with uninsured damage.