The industry has faced about half as much cost from disasters than it saw last year.
Swiss Re, the massive European reinsurance company, has released its most recent insurance news statistics for the year, saying that it looks as though the industry took on about half of the claims costs for disasters this year than it did last year.
The claims losses from 2011 were nearly record breaking, so the notable reduction is very welcome.
The prediction made by Swiss Re in its insurance news statement was that the industry would have paid out approximately $65 billion in catastrophe claims throughout 2012. Last year, that figure was much higher, as the insurance industry as a whole faced a whopping $120 billion in losses from claims relating to disasters around the world.
The majority of the insurance news from last year in terms of costs, had to do with weather disasters.
In its insurance news statement, Swiss Re said that in the United states, the majority of the total that was experienced this year had to do with disasters from weather related events. In particular, this included the droughts throughout the summer months which damaged crops and brought about a loss of $11 billion, as well as the more recent superstorm Sandy along the east coast of the country, which will have racked up an estimated $25 billion in claims.
While the bill for the claims this year is around half that of this year, the insurance news still shows that it is above the average for the last decade. Last year was exceptional due to the massive flooding in Thailand, the earthquakes in New Zealand, and the Tohoku earthquake in Japan. It was the second most expensive year in history.
The year with the most expensive insurance news in terms of overall cost from catastrophe claims was in 2005. That was the year that Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans. It brought about expenses that were greater than $123 billion, according to the figures from Swiss Re. Analysts have confirmed that the claim totals from this year fell well within the range for which the industry prepares itself.