PERILS has released its first industry loss estimate for extratropical windstorm Nils, also known as Ulrike, putting insured market losses at €586 million after the system hit southwest France in mid‑February.
The Zurich‑based catastrophe data provider said the figure is based on loss data reported by affected insurers and covers property and motor lines in line with its European coverage definition.
Nils affected the Nouvelle‑Aquitaine and Occitanie regions from Feb. 11 to 13, 2026, bringing destructive winds and intense rainfall to areas already saturated after what Météo‑France has described as an "unprecedented" winter of storms and flooding. France saw around 40 consecutive days of rain from mid-January, and February 2026 was the wettest February on record since measurements began in 1959, with national rainfall roughly twice the seasonal norm.
PERILS said that at the peak of the storm on Feb. 12, about 900,000 households were left without electricity and transport “came to a virtual standstill”. Flooding affected the Garonne, Dordogne and Charente river basins, and Nils also generated exceptional avalanche risk in the Alps.
The system was named Nils by Météo‑France and Ulrike by the Free University of Berlin. It was the most violent in a succession of storms to hit France in late January and February 2026, following Goretti and preceding Pedro. Météo‑France’s winter review noted that Nils and Pedro together pushed 174 river sections into flood alert, including red alerts on stretches of the Garonne and Charente.
While Nils was the most impactful storm in southwestern France since Klaus in January 2009, PERILS said the event looks less exceptional in a broader context. For France as a whole, the level of insured losses is expected to correspond to an event that occurs roughly once every five to six years, while on a Europe‑wide basis the loss return period is around one year.
By comparison, windstorm Klaus generated insured losses of around €1.6 billion according to PERILS’ final estimate, making it one of the costliest European winter storms of the 2000s. More recently, windstorm Ciarán in November 2023 produced an estimated insured property loss of €2.07 billion across France, the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands, with France alone accounting for about €1.6 billion.
“Nils’ wind footprint has a striking resemblance to Windstorm Klaus of January 2009. At the time, Klaus caused an industry loss of EUR 1,574 million, while for Nils losses were lower due to less intense wind gusts, " said Luzi Hitz, product manager at PERILS. "Nevertheless, it represents a sizable event for the French insurance market and follows only a little over a month after Windstorm Goretti, which also significantly impacted France.”
Although Nils brought damaging winds alongside heavy rain and flooding, PERILS said the majority of insured losses were caused by wind rather than flood. On that basis, it has classified the episode as a windstorm, consistent with its practice of assigning a catastrophe to the peril responsible for most of the losses.
Hitz noted that the region was hit a week later by storm Pedro, but said this falls outside the prevailing 72‑hour clause used in France to define storm events for reinsurance purposes and is therefore not included in the Nils loss number.
Under typical European catastrophe excess‑of‑loss wordings, windstorm losses are aggregated using a 72‑hour clause, with losses outside that window treated as a separate occurrence. For French cedants and their reinsurers, Pedro is therefore likely to be assessed as a distinct event for programme attachment and reinstatements, even though it struck already saturated catchments.
France’s public flood monitoring service Vigicrues described the 2025–26 winter as “extraordinary” in terms of the duration and extent of flooding, with 49 days of red and orange river‑flood alerts and 277 river sections - around 85% of monitored waterways - placed on alert at some point in the season.
State‑backed reinsurer CCR has estimated that the succession of storms and floods since December could cost the French market between €2.5 billion and €3 billion in insured losses, with Nils alone potentially generating around €1 billion of damage across some 250,000 households.
An updated market loss estimate is scheduled for May 13, 2026, three months after the event end date.
