FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German insurers are likely to face damage claims of around 750 million euros ($808 million) from windstorm "Niklas", which struck the country on March 31, insurance trade body GDV said on Monday.
That would make Niklas, which entailed wind speeds of up to 192 kilometers (119 miles) per hour, one of the five most costly storms to hit the country in the last 15 years, the GDV said of its estimate, which is preliminary.
Germany's third-largest insurer Talanx on Monday said it had penciled in a cost in the low double-digit million euro range from the storm and said this did not include claims faced by its subsidiary, reinsurer Hannover Re.
Europe's largest insurer Allianz and reinsurer Munich Re said they would unveil estimates of their own costs from the storm along with their first-quarter earnings results next month.
The majority of damage to houses, commercial properties and cars occurred in Germany but other countries such as Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France and Ireland were also affected, according to catastrophe modeling firm AIR, which estimated total insured damage from the storm at up to 1.9 billion euros.
($1 = 0.9285 euros)
(Reporting by Alexander Huebner and Jonathan Gould, editing by Georgina Prodhan and David Evans)
