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According to Swiss Re -the second largest reinsurance company in the world- the costs of disasters to our planet amounted to $ 175 billion in 2016. That was nearly double the 94 billion disasters cost in 2015. It must be stressed that the high percentage of uninsured losses in emerging markets and in developing countries remains of great concern. The flooding in July of the river Yangtze in China have caused $ 22 billion of damage, of which barely 400 million were covered by the insurance. By contrast, and concerning the floods that hit France, Germany and Belgium in May and June, the insurers covered $ 2.9 billion of the 3.9 billion in losses. However, we should also point out that in Italy only 1% of the houses destroyed by the earthquakes in August and October of last year were covered against the earthquake risk. The Swiss Re report recorded 327 disaster events in 2016 of which 191 were natural catastrophes and 136 were man-made. Finally, we can mention here an encouraging figure: the human cost of disasters with some 11,000 people dying in catastrophic events in 2016 is down from 26,000 a year earlier.

Mo Tailland / 12th April 2017

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