The Superstorm and other disasters were found to have caused $77 billion in insured losses.
The second largest reinsurer on the globe has issued its insurance news data regarding natural catastrophes as well as manmade disasters last year accumulated a cost to the industry of $77 billion.
This makes 2012 the third most costly year that the industry has ever recorded.
According to the Swiss Re insurance news report, there were over 300 different disasters and catastrophes last year. Together, they led to the loss of more than 14,000 lives. Furthermore, these led to an estimated $186 billion in total damage.
Swiss Re stated in its insurance news that it was primarily “large scale weather events” behind the cost.
This insurance news data was presented exclusively in terms of the damage that was experienced in the United States. A large contributor to this final total was Hurricane (Superstorm) Sandy. That brought in an estimated $35 billion in insured losses. That amount was nearly half of the worldwide total, already.
However, this week, the firm, based in Zurich, also released an insurance news statement which pointed out that when compared to 2011, the losses from 2012 had considerably decreased on a worldwide scale, which made last year’s American figures appear high in comparison. In 2011, the Asia Pacific region experienced flooding and earthquakes that generated the highest ever recorded insured losses, at an estimated total of over $126 billion.
The chief economist at Swiss Re, Kurt Karl, also released an insurance news statement along with his firm, saying that “large parts of the globe that are prone to weather extremes” remained uninsured. Therefore, their totals were not incorporated into the losses that were calculated by the firm and were not compared to the American totals.
At the same time, many forecasters are predicting that this type of extreme insurance news will become more common over the years as climate change continues to take its toll. Moreover, as the regions that are already at a high risk of these events become further developed, coverage will also become more common, and the recorded total losses from these storms will also continue to rise, simply because there is more coverage.
