JULY STORM DAMAGE IN JAPAN TO COST INSURERS ¥5BN

Insurance claims from last month’s storms in Kyushu and Nagano prefectures were likely to cost the insurance industry a total of ¥5bn, with each major Japanese casualty insurer likely to be on the hook for ¥1bn, reports today’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun. The impact on earnings was seen as limited. The claims compare with more than ¥24bn paid out in 2004 as a result of storms that hit Fukui, Niigata and Fukushima prefectures.