Editorial

Since storm Klaus in 2009, we have entered a phase in which heavy loss events are not merely incidental. Moreover, out of the seven events which have represented the most consequential claims experiences since Klaus, six of them are among the 10 most substantial in terms of cost for extraordinary risk insurance over the past 50 years .

It would be reasonable to think that this is attributable to some factor such as climate change. Without, of course, being dismissive of the significant bearing that this aspect might have on increasing hazard levels, the chief reason for this build-up of major events is greater exposure. In the space of just 20 years between 1990 and storm Klaus, the total sum assured for property damage with the Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros (CCS) rose from roughly 1.6 to 5 trillion euros, and the figure of somewhere in the region of 5 to 6 trillion euros has remained fairly stable ever since . Underlying this, the period of rapid economic development from the 90s through to the opening decade of this century translated into a spectacular burgeoning of the insurance industry and, by extension, of the overall sum assured, and this is logically the main reason why the loss figures in these past few years are at a palpably higher level and we are witnessing events of such magnitude.

These seven high-impact events which we review in this edition are: storm Klaus itself in 2009; the Lorca earthquake of 2011; the flooding which the cut-off lows of 2012 and 2019 led to; the loss and damage which the cyclone Gloria triggered in 2020; the volcanic eruption on the island of La Palma in 2021, and the flooding in the upper third of the Ebro basin (especially in Navarre) which also took place in 2021.

The front-page article is an in-depth study conducted by the technical sub-directorate at the CCS, and this edition then continues with accounts of several of these claims experiences:

• Klaus, by the sub-directorate for the Expertise Area; 
• The Lorca earthquake, by Alfonso Manrique, who for many years was deputy director of the Expertise Area at the CCS; 
• The cut-off lows of 2012 and 2019, which was written by various deputy directors and territorial representatives at the CCS;
• The latter is in turn supplemented by an article on this kind of atmospheric phenomenon, as well as others, by Dr José Luis Sánchez of the University of León;
• Cyclone Gloria, written by the CCS territorial representative in Catalonia;
• These articles end with a piece on the floods in the upper third of the Ebro basin, which was written by the three territorial representatives at the CCS who were affected by this claims experience; 

We have not included a special contribution on the La Palma volcanic eruption in this edition because we devoted a sizable part to it in the previous edition of Consorseguros Digital.

We round off this edition with a review of case law by José Antonio Badillo.