Will Koblensky
Aside from the human toll, natural and human-made disasters unleashed at least £127 billion in destruction during 2016.
That’s according to preliminary sigma estimates which say this past year saw a major rise in destruction compared with 2015’s £75 billion catastrophe-caused losses.
Insured forfeitures, too, were up at £39 billion from the £30 billion incurred in the prior year.
Approximately 10,000 people died in calamities both naturally occurring and artificially created in 2016.
Human-made cataclysms were up £6 Billion more than in 2015, though insured losses from natural disasters were slightly below the average of the past 10 years.
Earthquakes rocked Taiwan, Japan, Ecuador, Italy and New Zealand in 2016.
The costliest calamity of the year in conclusion was 7.0 magnitude earthquake striking Kumamoto in Japan, causing £4 billion in insured losses.
“Society is underinsured against earthquake risk,”
Swiss Re chief economist Kurt Karl said.
“And the protection gap is a global concern. For example, Italy is the 8th largest economy in the world, yet only 1% of homes in Italy are insured against earthquake risk. Most of the reconstruction cost burden of this year's quakes there will fall on households and society at large,” he added.
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