The insurance industry experienced a year dominated by flooding in 2024, with global industry losses from major natural catastrophes totalling $18.2 billion, according to CRESTA. The organisation released its Q4 update to the CRESTA Industry Loss Index (CLIX) and announced the integration of the service into PERILS’ product range as of January 1, 2025.
The report highlighted that flooding accounted for an unprecedented 78% of the year’s total losses, earning 2024 the designation of “the year of the floods.” This marked a departure from 2023, when severe convective storms drove losses. Experts attributed the shift to warming climate conditions, which increase atmospheric energy and moisture, fostering more extreme weather.
Eight international (non-US) catastrophes exceeded $1 billion in insured losses last year:
Two additional events – the Hyôgo hailstorms in Japan and Typhoon Yagi in China and Vietnam – narrowly missed the $1 billion loss threshold.
The Valencia Floods emerged as the largest non-US event of the year, with losses reaching $3.9 billion. This catastrophe now stands as the most significant natural disaster loss for Spain’s insurance market, CRESTA noted. A substantial portion of the damages were covered by Spain’s government-backed “Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros.”
As of January 2025, CRESTA CLIX will operate under the PERILS brand as “PERILS EXTENDED,” complementing the existing PERILS data services. This integration aims to streamline reporting for the insurance and reinsurance sectors, enhancing data accessibility and efficiency in the risk transfer market.
“The database now contains industry loss information for more than 200 catastrophe events. The data has been regularly reviewed and updated, and is accessible in a clean and structured format, allowing underwriters and Cat researchers to focus on analytics rather than data cleansing,” CRESTA CLIX manager Matthias Saenger said. “The CLIX team is looking forward to the launch of the PERILS EXTENDED service and we are convinced that the merger with PERILS CORE will benefit our users as it will provide single-source access to a comprehensive industry loss database.”
PERILS CEO Christoph Oehy emphasised the advantages of a consolidated reporting system, noting that CRESTA’s loss figures have been instrumental in insurance-linked securities transactions. “By having a single reporting agency, this will greatly simplify this process for the risk transfer markets, which was a key consideration when we decided to combine the two reporting services under the PERILS umbrella,” Oehy stated.
Founded in 1977, CRESTA provides technical support for managing natural catastrophe insurance. It is managed by PERILS CRESTA AG, a subsidiary of Zurich-based PERILS AG.
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