catastrophe

Top insurance and reinsurance organisations have called on governments of the world to increase efforts to raise resilience against natural disasters, highlighting the gap between economic and insured losses as an area that the industry can support resilience goals.

The world is meeting in Sendai, Japan over the coming days to discuss disaster risk reduction and how the world becomes more resilient to them. Risk transfer and re/insurance remain vital components of any disaster risk reduction initiative.

The parametric Pacific Island catastrophe risk insurance and reinsurance pooling initiative, the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance Pilot, may have been triggered by Cyclone Pam which made a direct hit on Vanuatu as a strong Category 5 storm.

With the challenging and softening reinsurance market expected to persist, the world’s largest reinsurer Munich Re warned this morning that the current market environment will show which firm’s are taking their return-on-equity targets seriously.

Natural disasters now cost the globe between $250 billion and $300 billion each year, as asset values increase and urbanisation expands bringing disaster risk management to the forefront of a sustainable future, according to the United Nations’ (UN).

Large corporations are under increasing pressure to disclose and ultimately financially protect themselves against weather, climate and natural disaster risks, the result of which will be a growing demand for insurance, reinsurance and risk transfer.

NASA launched a pioneering satellite into orbit on Saturday 31st January 2015 which will provide some benefits for providers of weather linked insurance, as well as further develop our understanding of natural perils.

Insured losses across the U.S. as a result of catastrophe events increased 19% on 2013’s total, at $15.4 billion, as the frequency of events toppled the ten-year-average, according to the latest data from Property Claims Services (PCS) Q4 and Full-Year 2014 Catastrophe Review.

Information provided by the NOAA’s historical, severe weather event database unit, the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), reveals that since 1980, 178 adverse weather events in the states have incurred costs between them surpassing $1 trillion.

Throughout 2014 a total of 258 natural disasters or catastrophes struck globally, causing total insured losses of $39 billion, a significant 38% dip below the ten-year average of $63 billion, according to Aon Benfield’s Impact Forecasting unit.