Munich Re: natural disasters in 2022

Munich Re has estimated the economic cost of natural disasters in 2022 at 270 billion USD. Nearly half of this amount, that is 120 billion USD, is borne by insurance companies.

Hurricane Ian, the costliest event of the past year, hit Florida's west coast in September 2022. This tropical cyclone resulted in 100 billion USD worth of economic damages, 60 billion USD of which are insured.

Two other weather events are listed as the second and third heaviest losses in terms of cost:

• Pakistan's floods with 15 billion USD of economic losses. The country is very poorly insured and there were several hundreds deaths as well as 32 million people displaced.
• The floods in Australia have generated insured losses totaling 4.7 billion USD.

Still according to Munich Re, the high number of natural catastrophe claims has had a major impact on insurers who are facing high inflation rates and a decrease in capital due to the increasing interest rates.