MUNICH (dpa-AFX) - Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, thunderstorms and other natural events caused worldwide losses of 250 billion dollars and claimed 74,000 lives last year, according to a study. This is reported by the reinsurer Munich Re in the new edition of its annual natural catastrophe report published on Tuesday. Most of the victims were claimed by the devastating series of earthquakes in Turkey and Syria in February.

The number of fatalities was the highest since 2010, said Ernst Rauch, Chief Geoscientist of the Dax Group. "This was mainly due to the earthquake in Turkey with 58,000 deaths." With economic losses of 50 billion dollars, this was also the most financially serious natural catastrophe of the past year, according to Munich Re. Only a small proportion of this - 5.5 billion dollars - was insured. Over the year as a whole, insurers worldwide assumed 95 of the 250 billion dollars in losses.

Munich Re has been documenting the worldwide destruction caused by nature for decades, as this is important for calculating insurance premiums. The 250 billion dollars (228 billion euros) in total economic losses therefore correspond to the average of the past five years.

The longer-term trend is pointing upwards: Adjusted for inflation, total losses in the ten-year average (2013 to 2022) were still at 230 billion dollars, while the average for the 30 years from 1993 to 2022 was 180 billion dollars.

The global loss picture in 2023 deviated from the usual: Unlike in many other years, there were no immense losses from individual very large hurricanes, floods or any other major catastrophe in the industrialized countries, according to Munich Re. "Typically, we have had one or more really major events in the past that have caused a large proportion of the loss amount," said Chief Geoscientist Rauch.

In 2022, for example, Hurricane Ian alone, which hit the US state of Florida and the Caribbean, caused 60 of the 125 billion dollars in insured losses worldwide. "That was a single event that accounted for almost half of the total losses."

In 2023, no natural disaster of this magnitude hit an industrialized country. "This year was not a peak year, neither for the economy as a whole nor for the insurance industry, but it was still a year with serious and conspicuous losses," said the scientist. "What is new and relevant both socially and economically is that the losses were very strongly driven by so-called severe thunderstorm events."

According to the company, the large number of medium-sized and smaller storms caused significantly more than half of the damage. "For years, we have seen a trend towards ever-increasing losses from severe thunderstorms/thunderstorms, which is probably related to climate change," said Rauch.

The storms were favored by the very high average global temperatures. The DAX-listed company pointed out that the average temperatures up to November were around 1.3 degrees Celsius above those of the pre-industrial era (1850-1900), making 2023 the warmest year since temperature measurements began.

According to Munich Re, both North America and Europe have never recorded such high thunderstorm losses: In North America, the figure was 66 billion dollars. For Europe, the Group put the total losses at 10 billion dollars (around 9.1 billion euros).

"The insurance industry uses the terms "secondary perils" and "non-peak perils" for these storms," said Rauch. "But these earlier secondary perils or non-peak events have added up to a dimension that already comes close to individual major events." The insurance industry needs to adapt its risk management. "But the wider society must also be prepared for severe weather events to cause significantly higher losses."

However, according to Rauch, prevention is possible: "There are three drivers behind the high level of damage caused by natural disasters," said the geologist. "One is nature, i.e. the severity of the event. The second is the financial value of the damaged goods, which is currently heavily influenced by inflation."

In third place is vulnerability - or resilience: "How well are buildings or infrastructure protected against extreme events? This third factor is the biggest factor when looking for solutions to mitigate the damage."/cho/DP/stw/he