insurance

The Colorado State University (CSU) tropical meteorology team has stuck with its forecast of well-below normal activity levels for the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, while its landfall probability metrics have declined somewhat as the season progresses.

CatIQ, Canada’s insured loss and exposure indices provider, has published a final insurance industry loss estimate of CAD $3.34 billion for the severe hailstorm that struck Calgary, Alberta Canada on August 5th, 2024.

The catastrophe bond market continues to demonstrate increased comfort with the wildfire peril in 2026, with the amount of risk capital deployed to support cat bonds that have some exposure to wildfire having soared to $5.183 billion year-to-date, already nearing the full-year record of $5.55 billion for the peril seen in 2025.

Last week’s magnitude 6.8 earthquake that struck near Kumamoto City on Japan’s Kyushu Island on July 28th is estimated likely to cause insurance industry losses of between US $1.4 billion to US $2.1 billion by data and analytics specialist Verisk.

As data center exposure continues to grow, it is placing significant pressure on the insurance industry to address these challenges. In light of this, Jason Bolding from Gallagher Securities has emphasised that the growth will require a blend of traditional insurance, reinsurance, captives, catastrophe bonds, and sidecars to effectively fill the widening protection gap.

Industry losses from the recent magnitude 6.8 earthquake that struck Kumamoto Prefecture are expected to be relatively lower than the devastating 2016 Kumamoto quakes, which caused US $53 billion in economic and $7.7 billion in insured losses, according to broking group Aon.

A substantial severe weather outbreak in the Midwest of the United States this week is seen as having the potential to result in a top-10 severe weather insurance industry loss event, which would imply the cost could be around $5 billion or higher to the market, according to broker Aon.

As the reinsurance industry has transitioned into a softening market phase, analysts at Berenberg have indicated that a single $100 billion catastrophe event is unlikely to revert the industry back to a hard market cycle.

Reinsurance firm Munich Re has estimated that global insured losses from natural catastrophe events reached US $44 billion in the first-half of 2026, below long-term averages, and a notable decline from last year’s $80 billion. 

Twelve Securis has reported that it does not expect any significant loss impact to the cat bond market from yesterday’s Kumamoto, Japan earthquake, while an assessment of its private ILS positions also does not suggest any material impact.