Natural disasters cost Asia-Pacific US$50 billion last year, of which just US$9 billion was covered by insurance, says Munich Re

Name: Rainfall triggers floods in Indonesia’s Aceh province as La Nina returns
Uploaded: 2022-01-10T13:31:27.000Z
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Description: Rainfall triggers floods in Indonesia’s Aceh province as La Nina returns

Natural disasters caused losses of US$280 billion globally, making it the second-costliest year on record, says the world’s largest reinsurer

‘The natural disasters of 2021 have highlighted the enormity of the insurance gap in the Asia-Pacific region,’ said Dr Achim Kassow of Munich Re

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The costliest natural disaster in the region last year was the severe flood caused by heavy rainfall in central China’s Henan province in July. Photo: TNS

Yujie Xue

Published: 9:31pm, 10 Jan 2022

Natural disasters caused economic losses of US$280 billion globally in 2021, making it the second-costliest year on record, according to Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer.

Less than half this amount was covered by insurance, the company said. The Asia-Pacific region, though its losses were modest, lagged the rest of the world on this metric – only a fraction of its losses were insured.

Last year’s US$280 billion figure was substantially higher than the US$210 billion in 2020 and the US$166 billion in 2019.

Insured losses totalled around US$120 billion last year.

02:09

Rainfall triggers floods in Indonesia’s Aceh province as La Nina returns

The economic cost of catastrophes in Asia-Pacific came to US$50 billion, accounting for just 18 per cent of the global total, according to Germany-based Munich Re. However, only US$9 billion of that was insured, leaving an insurance gap of 83 per cent, much wider than the global average of 57 per cent.

“The natural disasters of 2021 have highlighted the enormity of the insurance gap in the Asia-Pacific region,” said Dr Achim Kassow, a member of Munich Re’s management board.