Hurricanes, floods bring $120 billion in insurance losses in 2022

FRANKFURT/MUNICH — Hurricane Ian in the USA and floods and Australia helped to make 2022 one of many costliest years on file for pure disasters, Munich Re stated on Tuesday, warning that local weather change was making storms extra intense and frequent.

Losses from pure catastrophes lined by insurance totaled round $120 billion final yr, much like 2021, although wanting 2017’s file damages, Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer, stated.

The annual tally by Munich Re is greater than the typical of $97 billion in insured losses over the earlier 5 years and exceeds an preliminary estimate of $115 billion final month by rival Swiss Re.

“Weather shocks are on the rise,” Ernst Rauch, chief local weather scientist at Munich Re, informed Reuters. “We can’t directly attribute any single severe weather event to climate change. But climate change has made weather extremes more likely.”

Annual insured losses of $100 billion seem like “the new normal,” he stated.

Whole losses from pure catastrophes, together with these not lined by insurance, have been $270 billion in 2022. That’s down from round $320 billion in 2021 and close to the typical of the earlier 5 years.

America as soon as once more accounted for a giant portion of the losses with Hurricane Ian, which hit Florida in September, inflicting $60 billion of insured damages and $100 billion in complete losses.

Floods in Australia early in the yr and once more in October resulted in $4.7 billion in insured damages and $8.1 billion total.

File monsoon rains and quicker melting of glaciers resulted in floods in Pakistan that killed at the least 1,700 folks and precipitated $15 billion in damages. A lot of the injury was not lined by insurance.

Scientists have stated that occasions in 2022 have been exacerbated by local weather change and that there’s extra — and worse — to return because the Earth’s environment continues to heat via the subsequent decade and past.

Insurers have in some instances been elevating the charges they cost because of the growing probability of disasters, and in some locations have stopped offering protection. — Reuters

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