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Hannover Re hardly affected by Oder floods

Hannover, July 30 1997:

The flooding along the banks of the river Oder in eastern Germany are causing increasingly heavy losses with damage running into billions of German marks. It will be several months before the total extent of the devastation caused by the floods finally becomes clear. As has been comprehensively reported in the press recently, insurance cover is only provided for flood if it is included in those household insurance policies which were carried over from the days of the former GDR.

Yesterday rumours circulated on the stock market that Hannover Re had participated extensively in the reinsurance of these household insurance policies, however, this is not the case. Indeed, Hannover Re's losses - if any - are expected to be extremely low, the maximum claims volume being calculated at under 1 million DM. In the news letter issued July 17, 1997, Hannover Re announced that the flooding in parts of Poland and the Czech Republic would only lead to a single-digit million DM net loss for the company and that this loss would have no adverse effect on the 1997 result.