Insured catastrophe losses up 51% YOY in H1 2016

Earthquake in Japan, thunderstorms in the US and Europe, and wildfires in Canada collectively caused $31 billion of insured losses in the first half of 2016, up 51 percent from the same period in 2015, according to estimates made by Swiss Re ahead of its sigma report.

The insured losses represented 44 percent of the total losses of $71 billion from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters in the first half of 2016, an increase of 38 percent from $52 billion for the same period in 2015.

In particular, $68 billion of the total losses were related to natural catastrophes, and $3 billion were man-made.

Of the insured losses, $28 billion were driven by natural catastrophes and $3 billion were man-made losses. The natural catastrophe losses were slightly higher than the ten-year average of $26 billion.

As many as 6,000 lives were lost in disaster events in H1 2016, compared to 12,000 in the same period of the previous year.

Among the costliest of events for the insurance sector were thunderstorms in the US and Europe, with three separate weather events in the US causing combined insured losses of over $7 billion.

The most intense of these was a major convective storm in Texas in April 2016, resulting in insured losses of $3.1 billion, as large hailstones caused widespread property damage.

Europe, which was also subject to severe weather events, faced insured losses of $2.8 billion caused by thunderstorms, flash floods and river flooding from slow-moving, low-pressure systems Elvira and Friederike.

The Kumamoto earthquake in Japan resulted in insured losses of $5.6 billion from the series of shocks which caused extensive structural damage, fires, and collapsed buildings.

Wildfires in Canada had overall insured losses of $2.5 billion, making it the costliest wildfire event in insurance industry history.