2024-01-09 09:30:06
View of homes destroyed by a tornado on March 26, 2023, in Rolling Fork, Mississippi. SCOTT OLSON / GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP
A stable overall cost but increasingly destructive storms. Natural disasters caused damage in 2023 estimated at around $250 billion (228 billion euros), an amount unchanged from that recorded the previous year, show estimates published Tuesday January 9 by Munich Re.
Insured losses alone have decreased by almost a quarter, to 95 billion dollars compared to 125 billion in 2022, specifies the German group, the world number one reinsurer, these “insurers of insurers” to which insurance companies Insurance companies retrocede, in return for the payment of premiums, part of the risks they cover.
This significant gap between total losses and insured losses is largely explained by the location of the costliest disasters of the past year: the series of earthquakes which struck Turkey and Syria in February 2023, killing some 58 people. 000 people, caused around $50 billion in damage but only $5.5 billion was covered by an insurance policy.
Likewise, Typhoon Doksuri, which hit the Philippines and then China in July, where in certain areas it resulted in unprecedented precipitation of 600 millimeters of water in twenty-four hours, caused around 25 billion dollars in losses, of which barely 2 billion were insured.
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Expected consequences of warming
The difference is a little less spectacular for the damage caused in October by Hurricane Otis on the western coast of Mexico, with damages of 12 billion dollars, a third of which must be compensated. The hotels in the seaside resort of Acapulco, devastated in a few hours by the storm and winds which peaked at 265 kilometers per hour, were indeed well insured.
Beyond these differences, underlines Munich Re, Typhoon Doksuri and Hurricane Otis correspond to the expected consequences of climate change, namely an increased frequency of intense storms accompanied by very heavy rainfall.
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“The warming of the Earth, which has been accelerating for several years, is intensifying extreme weather phenomena in many regions, leading to an increase in potential losses. More water evaporates at higher temperatures and the extra moisture in the atmosphere provides increased energy for severe thunderstorms,” explains Ernst Rauch, climate science director at Munich Re.
In total, the storms of 2023 in Europe and North America were more destructive than ever, notes Munich Re, with overall damage of $76 billion (including $58 billion in insured losses), an unprecedented toll in these two regions.
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