Economic and insured losses incurred from natural disasters in the first half of the year have reached their highest levels since 2011, according to a new report by international broker
Aon Benfield.
The company’s latest catastrophe report showed that global economic losses climbed to £74 billion (US$98 billion) in the first six months of 2016.
Public and private insurers covered 30% or about £22.7 billion (US$30 billion) of the global economic losses, the report said.
Both economic and insured losses were slightly below their 10-year averages, but higher than the longer-term averages dating to 2000.
"The first half of 2016 ended up as the costliest on an economic and insured loss basis since 2011,” said Steve Bowen, a director within
Aon Benfield's Impact Forecasting team.
Bowen said the major disasters so far this year included the Japan earthquakes, the Fort McMurray wildfire in Canada, flooding in Western Europe and the series of extensive hailstorms in the US.
For the insurance industry, severe convective storm (SCS) was the costliest peril with £9.3 billion (US$12.3 billion) losses.
Most of the insurable losses from SCS resulted from major thunderstorm events in the US that prompted widespread hail, damaging straight-line winds, and tornadoes.
According to the report, there were six global insured events – five of which were weather-related – that cost at least US$1 billion from January to June 2016.
Aon warned of more catastrophes and losses during the second half of the year with the impending threat of La Niña.
“There will be a heightened focus on the risk of flooding across parts of Asia and hurricane landfall in the Atlantic Ocean basin,” Bowen said.
“The financial toll of weather disasters during La Niña years has historically been among the costliest on record, and so we will wait to see whether this trend plays out in the coming months.”
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