Global insured losses hit $30B in the first half of 2016: Impact Forecasting

In the first half of the year, global economic losses reached $98 billion U.S. and global insured losses $30 billion, Impact Forecasting reports.

While both levels are below their 10-year averages of $112 billion and $31 billion respectively, they are slightly above their longer-term averages of $84 billion and $24 billion.

Just 30 per cent of losses were covered by public and private insurers, and the U.S. accounted for nearly half (47 per cent) of that.

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“The first half of 2016 ended up as the costliest on an economic and insured loss basis since 2011,” Steve Bowen, director within Aon Benfield’s Impact Forecasting team, said in a statement. “The year has already been highlighted by a significant earthquake sequence in Japan, the Fort McMurray wildfire in Canada, flooding in Western Europe and a series of extensive hailstorms in the United States.”

So far this year, earthquakes were the costliest disaster in terms of economic loss. Damage from quakes made up 30 per cent of total losses, mostly due to the two strong earthquakes that rattles the Kumamoto region in Japan in April.

Severe convective storms, on the other hand, caused the most insured losses, making up 42 per cent of the total. Most resulted from major thunderstorms, hail storms and tornadoes in the U.S. Losses in Texas made up 55 per cent of all insured severe convective storm losses.

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Impact also found there were five weather-related global events that led to insured losses of more than $1 billion. There were also 20 weather-related events that led to economic losses of at least $1 billion. There were nine in the U.S., seven in the Asia-Pacific region, three in the Americas, and three in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

“With the pending transition to La Nina during the second half of the year, 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 Nina 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.”

This story was originally published by Canadian Insurance Top Broker.