PERILS released its fifth and final loss estimate for the Kahramanmaras Earthquake Sequence on 6 February 2023. This disaster impacted large areas of south-central Turkey and neighboring Syria.
PERILS estimates the insured property market loss at TRY 116.9 bn ($6.2 bn as of February 2023). This is slightly down from the previous estimate of TRY 117 bn.
These figures cover property losses in Turkey but exclude other business lines and losses in Syria.
The report provides a breakdown of property losses by province, divided into residential and commercial lines, and further categorized into buildings, contents, and business interruption losses.
The Kahramanmaras Earthquake Sequence involved two shallow earthquakes measuring Mw 7.8 and Mw 7.7, along the Eastern Anatolian fault system. Ground shaking reached extreme intensities near the epicenters and was felt up to 1,000 km away.
Kahramanmaras Earthquake caused severe devastation, with around 62,000 deaths and 3 mn people displaced. The Turkish government estimated the economic cost at nearly TRY 2 trillion ($105 bn).
It remains the costliest catastrophe in Turkey’s history, with residential building losses covered by the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP) and commercial losses covered by private insurers.
Luzi Hitz, Product Manager at PERILS, remarked that the earthquake sequence was a significant human tragedy, requiring years for recovery.
He praised the proactive response of the Turkish insurance industry in handling claims efficiently. Post-event reinsurance renewals saw significant changes but were successfully implemented.
Kahramanmaras Earthquake has clearly been very challenging for the Turkish insurance market but has been met with an incredibly pragmatic, ‘can-do’ response
Luzi Hitz, Product Manager at PERILS
A new mechanism was also introduced to adjust TCIP coverage in line with inflation. Hitz noted that the industry loss figure has remained stable, making this the final report on the Kahramanmaras Earthquake Sequence.
According to USGS Geologic Hazards Science Center, the map shows the location of the February 6, 2023, M 7.8 (orange star) and M 7.5 (blue star) earthquakes. Also shown are the plate boundaries and active faults in Turkey. Black arrows show schematically the motions of the African and Arabian plates, and the Anatolian block. Also shown are the relative motions across the North and East Anatolian faults.
The relative motions of three major tectonic plates (Arabian, Eurasian, and African) and one smaller tectonic block (Anatolian) are responsible for the seismicity in Turkey.
The geologic development of the region is a consequence of several first-order plate boundary interactions between these plates that include subduction, large-scale transform faulting, compressional mountain building and crustal extension.
The closure of the Mediterranean Sea as the African and Arabian plates converge with the Eurasian plate causes westward motion of the Anatolian block. That motion is primarily taken up along the North and East Anatolian faults.
The Cyprus Arc represents the convergent (subduction) boundary between the African plate to the south and the Anatolian block to the north.
