France summer wildfires insurance losses, Digi Mart USA News (France): France’s summer wildfires have caused about 22,500 insurance claims, but they do not weaken the country’s insurance sector, according to the banking and insurance supervisor, the Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (ACPR), which is attached to the Banque de France.
The ACPR said Tuesday that the costs of this summer’s fires in France are “not of a nature to weaken the French insurance sector.” The fires in Gironde, the Landes and the Var caused about 22,500 claims, for a total cost that could reach 563 million euros, the industry federation France Assureurs had indicated in mid-October.
The regulator compared that amount with a total gross claims burden of 136 billion euros in 2025 for non-life insurers, which it said made the wildfire cost more than 240 times smaller. In a note titled “The situation of insurers in the first half of 2026,” the ACPR also noted that the weight of the fire and property damage category in total non-life provisions, excluding health, has risen significantly over the past six years.
Earlier, in mid-August, Ecological Transition Minister Monique Barbut said that repeated heatwaves this summer could cost France between 10 and 15 billion euros in direct and indirect costs. Those figures include destroyed stock and property and other broader effects beyond lost growth.
