Catastrophe data aggregator PERILS has increased its insurance industry loss estimate for extratropical windstorm “Éowyn”, a storm that impacted the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the Central Belt of Scotland in early 2025, adding 7% to take the estimate to EUR 747 million.
Windstorm Éowyn, also known as “Gilles” was a particularly intense European extratropical cyclone that affected the region during the period of January 24th – 25th 2025, producing record-breaking wind gusts of 185 km/h in the Republic of Ireland.
The storm also produced 173 km/h gusts on the Cairnwell mountain in the Eastern Highlands of Scotland.
PERILS’ initial estimate for the event was EUR 619 million, reported in early March 2025.
Then, in its second update to the estimate in April, PERILS increased the total by 12.5% to EUR 696 million.
Now, the estimate has been raised a further 7% to reach EUR 747 million, which is based on data collected from insurers and covers just the property line of business.
51% of the industry loss estimate comes from personal line insurance losses, while the remaining 49% comes from commercial lines business, PERILS said.
PERILS also noted that at EUR 747 million this is not a particularly unusual European windstorm insured loss event, with windstorm losses of this size occurring once every 1-2 years.
However, while for the UK it was the largest windstorm loss since 2022, while for the Republic of Ireland it resulted in the biggest windstorm loss in at least 45 years.
Luzi Hitz, Product Manager at PERILS, stated, “Windstorm Éowyn was a meteorological textbook example of a European extratropical cyclone. It initially formed over the Gulf of Mexico, was rapidly transported over the North Atlantic by a powerful jet stream and underwent explosive cyclogenesis (also known as a “bomb cyclone”) before striking the British Isles on 24 January 2025. At Mace Head in County Galway in Ireland, a record-breaking gust of 185km/h was measured, easily matching wind speeds usually associated with hurricanes and typhoons.
”Such severe winds are of course a rare occurrence and make Éowyn a particularly valuable event to learn from and calibrate vulnerability functions at extreme gust speeds. This will help to anchor Cat models more securely to the reality of such severe winds and in turn contribute to more accurate outputs, which is one of the main goals of our work.”
