JEDDAH: With total damages from the Jeddah flood initially having been estimated at around SR3.5 billion, Tawuniya has announced its share of the losses to construction and property to be at around SR30 million.
The estimate includes total losses and damages to factories, warehouses, administrative centers, shopping malls construction projects, buildings and roads.
“Tawuniya has taken initiatives to speed up the process of the claims settlement to eliminate the hardships faced by its clients,” said Fahad Al-Hesni, vice-president of property and casualty at Tawuniya.
He also said that as a part of the initiative, staff and loss adjusters were deputed on the same day as the floods to interact with clients and closely follow up on claims and information to reduce turnover time. Al-Hesni said that there has been a higher than average number of natural calamities in the Kingdom of late, including not just the recent rains but also earthquakes near Madinah and sand storms in Riyadh.
There were also some damaging rains and floods on Dec. 23, nearly a month after the flash flooding in Jeddah. Al-Hesni said that these events have caused Tawuniya to enhance its reinsurance excess-of-loss protection in 2009 in order to bring ultimate net risk exposure down to reasonable levels.
“The increase of natural disasters in the region has forced the insurance and reinsurance industry to review their underwriting terms and rates, restrictions on terms, limits, deductibles amounting to an imposed increase in rates,” he said.
Al-Hesni highlighted that over the past decade Tawuniya has paid approximately SR3.5 billion in client compensation due to property or casualty claims for damages.
