A model has been developed in order to estimate insurance-related lossescaused by coastal flooding in France. The deterministic part of the modelaims at identifying the potentially flood-impacted sectors and thesubsequent insured losses a few days after the occurrence of a storm surgeevent on any part of the French coast. This deterministic component is acombination of three models: a hazard model, a vulnerability model, and adamage model. The first model uses the PREVIMER system to estimate the waterlevel resulting from the simultaneous occurrence of a high tide and a surgecaused by a meteorological event along the coast. A storage-cell flood modelpropagates these water levels over the land and thus determines the probableinundated areas. The vulnerability model, for its part, is derived from theinsurance schedules and claims database, combining information such as risktype, class of business, and insured values. The outcome of the vulnerabilityand hazard models are then combined with the damage model to estimate theevent damage and potential insured losses. This system shows satisfactoryresults in the estimation of the magnitude of the known losses related tothe flood caused by the Xynthia storm. However, it also appears verysensitive to the water height estimated during the flood period, conditionedby the junction between seawater levels and coastal topography, theaccuracy for which is still limited by the amount of information in the system.
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