As Kerala is recovering from the two weeks of incessant downpour and a resulting flood situation, ICICI Lombard on Friday said that industry expect damages from deluge to be around Rs 600 crore.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Sanjay Datta, chief underwriting, claims and reinsurance, said, "From an estimate perspective, the damages are grim and people have suffered. We are aware of the loss of lives and the kind of experience they have in terms of the fury of the flood. Having said all of that, the industry estimate on damages which tend to be insured vary anywhere between Rs 500 crore and Rs 1,000 crore at this point of time."

Datta said, "The damage which is economic in nature, there are estimates around Rs 20,000 crore or something like that. What matters is how much of that is covered in terms of damages."

“It's too preliminary because people have started to coming back, claims have just started trickling in for everyone. Between the players, some will have more exposure than others and some will have more claims than others, having said that from a preparation perspective and our ability to tackle this enormity in terms of hardship which the people in Kerala are going through, the industry is geared – the mechanism to tackle this is on prepared lines. We as a company have reached out to all our customers,” Datta added.

"The whole idea is to attempt to mitigate the losses through fast settlement so that people are able to reinstate their properties and start afresh,” he further mentioned.

First Published:Aug 24, 2018 3:11 PM IST