The hurricane trio of Harvey, Irma and Maria will cost the insurance industry a record amount in 2017: the final insurance bill for those and other natural catastrophes, including a severe earthquake in Mexico, is expected to come to US$ 135bn – higher than ever before. And overall losses – i.e. including uninsured losses – amounted to US$ 330bn, the second-highest figure ever recorded for natural disasters. The only costlier year so far was 2011, when the Tohoku earthquake in Japan contributed to overall losses of US$ 354bn in today’s dollars.
Torsten Jeworrek, Munich Re Board member responsible for global reinsurance business: “This year’s extreme natural catastrophes show how important insurance is in absorbing financial losses in the wake of such disasters. Munich Re is willing to develop this business further – we have the necessary capacity and expertise. For me, a key point is that some of the catastrophic events, such as the series of three extremely damaging hurricanes, or the very severe flooding in South Asia after extraordinarily heavy monsoon rains, are giving us a foretaste of what is to come. […]
This is the kind of money focused info that may help change views of those who only think of life in that way. Those who unfortunately for human civilization are the ones who, for now, hold the balance of control and power. It doesn’t matter at this point what “actually” causes climate instability-hot or cold-it is clearly happening with rapidly increasing cost.
We humans world-wide have a vast store of intelligence, skills and ingenuity to figure out how to deal with the changes rapidly advancing upon us. It seems we may have a few years to organize and focus away from blame and war-to decide that we live on the only planet that is available for us.