As temperatures rise, the world also becomes stormier. Accordingly, according to an analysis by Munich Re, losses from natural catastrophes are increasing.
According to the reinsurer Munich Re, increasingly violent storms give rise to fears of increasing natural catastrophe losses on earth in the coming years. Last year, floods, storms, forest fires and other natural disasters caused economic damage of 270 billion dollars worldwide, as Munich Re announced on Tuesday.
According to the company’s analysis, that was less than 2021 (320 billion), but was part of the “loss-intensive” past five years. The most expensive catastrophe of the past year was hurricane Ian, which hit the US east coast at the end of September, costing $100 billion.
Natural catastrophes are also becoming increasingly expensive for insurance companies: around 120 billion of the total loss of 270 billion was insured. “We have something like a new normal with 100 billion annual claims for the insurance industry,” said Ernst Rauch, head of geo research at Munich Re. “In the recent past we have exceeded this limit five times. In the future we will reach or exceed the hundred billion more and more frequently.”
Focus North America
Munich Re has been documenting global losses from natural disasters for decades, as the data is important for calculating insurance premiums. Financially, natural catastrophes often hit North America the hardest, including last year with a total loss of 150 billion dollars.
Hurricanes are a key factor in this. “Atlantic hurricane statistics go back to 1851,” said Rauch. “On average, there have been around eleven to twelve named tropical cyclones per year since then, but the observation data from earlier decades are not necessarily complete.”
Reliable data has been available since satellite observation began in the late 1970s. “And since then we’ve had an average of about 14 to 15 named storms per year, many of them hurricane strength. Our observation in recent years is that the number of storms in the North Atlantic has increased.”
Munich Re assumes that the trend, which is worrying for the US east coast and the Caribbean, will continue: “The proportion of particularly strong storms has also increased, and this will continue to increase as a result of climate change,” said Rauch.
Drought and high temperatures in Europe
The Asia/Pacific region follows in second place in terms of natural catastrophe losses with around 70 billion. The damage in Europe amounted to about 25 billion. According to the company’s geoscientists, extreme drought and temperatures in parts of the continent were unusual. “You have to address and classify the exceptional nature of the hot summer of 2022,” said Rauch.
“In Hamburg and London we had over 40 degrees for the first time, and again – similar to 2018 – saw a severe drought. There are not many years in which climate change can be felt so directly in Germany.” Rauch’s expectation for the future: “We will see this combination of heat and drought more often in the future.”
Individual natural catastrophes are now causing much more serious damage in some regions of the world than in the past: “The floods in Australia show a sudden development in claims, which we are increasingly observing in some countries and with some natural hazards,” said Rauch. The flood damage in Australia totaled 4.7 billion, significantly more than double the hitherto largest flood damage of 1.8 billion.
This also applies to Germany: “In the Ahr Valley, the insured damage, at eight billion euros, exceeded the previous damage record from flooding in Germany by a factor of four,” Rauch cited the flood of summer 2021 as an example.
Source: Stern
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
