 Hurricane Maria, Saint Martin |
The compensations disbursed by insurers are expected to rise from 65 billion USD in 2016 up to 136 billion USD in 2017.
The survey has also found that 2017 is the third most catastrophic year since 1970, the year when the first publication of the cost of global natural disasters [4] was issued by the magazine.
After the relatively mild first seven months of 2017, catastrophic events of unprecedented scale have multiplied at a high pace, with devastating cyclones such as Harvey, Irma and Maria lashing South East United States between late August and September 2017. Two earthquakes then followed, shaking Mexico.
All of the afore-mentioned events resulted in insured losses estimated at more than 100 billion USD, sums that do not include the loss triggered by other natural disasters that hit South East Asia.
The forest fires that consumed parts of the State of California last December came to deal a decisive blow to the market, thus closing an exceptionally-catastrophic season.