Private jets, airlines peg losses due to Chennai flood at Rs 400 crore

CHENNAI: Private jets parked at Chennai airport and commercial aircraft bore the brunt of Chennai floods at the airport.
Venu Srinivasan's private jet, Kalanithi Maran's and jeweller Joyalukkas' were among those that were damaged. In all, eight private jets and 14 commercial planes were hit.
So far, aviation losses have been pegged at Rs 400 crore based on insurance claims - Rs 200 crore is the claims from marine cargo.This takes the total claim estimations from the Chennai floods to around Rs 3,000 crore.The marine and aviation claims account for about 20% of the total claims value received so far.
Insurers state that commercial and nationalised carriers take a comprehensive cover that includes passenger liability and cover for hull and other parts of the aircraft. "Airline insurance is fairly complex with many insurers going in for reinsurance. Damage occurred to systems at the parking bay (that help in aircraft navigation and landing) and other auxil iary equipment," J Rajan, executive director of Cunningham Lindsey, which is into insurance survey and assessment, said. United India Insu rance has reported aviation claims of Rs 60 crore from four private jets, while ICICI Lombard got two claims for commercial aircraft.
"As of now, we expect the loss to be below Rs 5 crore," said Sanjay Datta, chief, underwriting claims of ICICI Lombard.
Marine cargo shipments have also been impacted as a result of the recent floods. Operations at the container handling section of Chennai port were hampered and the volume of shipments came down by 50% between December 2 and 9, said Pankaj Verma, head, claim operations of SBI General Insurance.