AFP published this article:
Total economic losses caused by natural disasters hit an estimated $72 billion in the first half of 2022, Swiss reinsurance giant Swiss Re said Tuesday.
“The effects of climate change are evident in increasingly extreme weather events, such as the unprecedented floods in Australia and South Africa,“ said Martin Bertogg, Swiss Re’s head of catastrophe perils.
The Zurich-based group, which acts as an insurer for insurers, said the losses were also fuelled by winter storms in Europe as well as heavy thunderstorms in the United States and Europe.
“This confirms the trend we have observed over the last five years, that secondary perils are driving insured losses in every corner of the world,“ Bertogg said.
“Unlike hurricanes or earthquakes, these perils are ubiquitous and exacerbated by rapid urbanisation in particularly vulnerable areas,“ he said.
“Given the scale of the devastation across the globe, secondary perils require the same disciplined risk assessment as primary perils such as hurricanes.”
Natural disasters caused $91 billion in losses in the first half of 2021.
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