Since Sunday, storm Hans has caused extensive damage around Sweden. Claims have been received by Swedish insurance companies in their thousands and are unlike anything they have seen before, according to Erik Arvidsson, loss prevention manager at Folksam.
"What is unique about the injuries after Hans is that they are not concentrated in one place, as it usually is. Now there are notifications from Sundsvall in the north to southern Skåne, and we have not experienced that before. It's completely unique," he says.
Flooding across the country
Other insurance companies also share the picture of the situation as extreme, both compared to normal years and previous extreme weather.
"It's extremely much worse than usual. If you look at the rainstorm in Gävle in 2021, which was the last major weather event we had, it was concentrated in the central parts of Gävle, says Håkan Franzén, insurance expert at Trygg hansa.
"But now we've had floods across almost the whole country, and that's very unique. I've never seen anything like it," he adds.
Many claims
According to Susanne Fagerberg, natural damage specialist at Länsförsäkringar, they received more than 1000,<> reports from Skåne and Dalarna, among others, on Thursday.
In total, the three companies have received more than 2,000 claims related to Storm Hans.
"However, we can expect that there will be an aftermath of late damage reports among holiday home owners and those who have been away from their homes during the storm. My estimate based on what we know right now is that there will certainly be at least two thousand injuries in the end, she says.