Floods of July 2021 in Europe: the most expensive disaster for insurance

According to the latest report from the Cresta organization, the July 2021 floods in Western Europe are considered the most expensive disaster for insurers since the year 2000.

The bad weather, which mainly affected Germany and Belgium from 12 to 18 July 2021, caused 240 deaths and insured losses in the order of 11 billion USD. In addition to this climate disaster, the violent storms unleashed in Europe in June 2021. The latter have caused 5.1 billion USD of damages.

The events of June and July 2021 total a cost of more than 16 billion USD for European insurers. This bill makes 2021 the most expensive year for the European insurance market since the beginning of the century.

In its report, Cresta has also mentioned other major natural disasters occurring in the rest of the world in 2021. The earthquake in Japan and the floods in China have generated losses of 2.5 billion USD and 1.9 billion USD respectively.

These disasters could potentially lead to an upward revision of reinsurance rates.