disaster

The United Nations climate experts have published a lengthy report looking at mechanisms and methods to help make societies more resilient to natural disasters and severe weather events. The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change discusses the billions of dollars of damages caused by extreme weather and climate events in recent years, whether […]

2011 saw the highest economic losses from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters on record and the second highest insured losses ever, according to the latest sigma report from reinsurer Swiss Re. Total economic losses leaped from the $226 billion experienced in 2010 to a massive $370 billion in 2011, while insured losses came in at […]

The Inter-American Development Bank has been discussing new disaster risk financing instruments to assist countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to recover after major natural disaster or weather events. A disaster fund has been discussed and is one of the options on the table. Other instruments which have been discussed are contingent capital type […]

The Mexican government has decided to triple their investment in disaster insurance coverage for 2012, over the amount the country spent in 2011 according to reports. 3.15 billion pesos, which is nearly $250m has been set aside for investment in disaster insurance to protect the country from climate, weather and catastrophe events.

Reinsurer Munich Re has published a review of the natural catastrophe loss event which impacted around the globe during 2011. According to their data, 2011 insured catastrophe losses reached $105 billion, beating the previous record losses of 2005 which Munich Re recorded as $101 billion.

Of the approximately $108 billion of natural and man-made catastrophe insured losses experienced during 2011 the Asia-Pacific region accounted for over two-thirds of them, according to data published by Guy Carpenter today. This broke a historical trend of U.S. based events dictating the movement of property catastrophe reinsurance pricing, something borne out by the large […]

Swiss Re have released their preliminary estimate of insured losses resulting from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters occurring during 2011. Swiss Re’s sigma team estimate the total insured loss at $108 billion with natural catastrophes contributing $103 billion of that, well up on the $43 billion experienced during 2010.

2011 has been a year of major losses for re/insurers around the world and at home. This year has seen the highest number of billion dollar weather disasters in U.S. history although that hasn’t equated to the largest U.S. losses on record. Billion dollar weather disaster incidence does seem to be on the rise with […]

Some details have emerged, via the Japanese press, of a much discussed Asia disaster insurance facility which has been widely expected to emerge for over a year. The Japanese government say that they plan to work with the World Bank and Asian Development Bank to establish a disaster insurance facility for the Asia-Pacific region to […]

Reinsurer Munich Re says that their natural catastrophe database (NatCatSERVICE) shows that the Asia Pacific region is increasingly exposed to major weather-related catastrophe events. Their database shows that weather-related catastrophes have more than tripled in the last 30 years, with China seeing weather disasters quadrupling since 1980.