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Economic losses - the combination of insured and uninsured
losses - reached $343 billion, Aon said in the report which it
publishes annually.
Climate change and greater population density in some areas hit
by disasters are adding to the losses, said Steve Bowen, head of
catastrophe insight at Aon.
"Weather has always happened, weather is always going to happen
-- climate change is essentially the steroid that makes the
events become more intense," he said.
"There's more people moving into those high-risk areas, you have
these climate-change-enhanced events affecting more people."
European floods in July produced record economic losses for the
continent at $46 billion, with insured losses of $13 billion.
In addition to losses from hurricanes, wildfires and the
European floods, major disasters last year included a winter
storm in Texas, tornadoes in Kentucky and an earthquake in
Japan.
There were around 10,500 deaths from natural disasters last
year, Aon said.
Reinsurer Munich Re
https://www.reuters.com/markets/
commodities/natural-disasters-cost-insurers-120-billion-2021-munich-re-says-2022-01-10
said earlier this month that global insured losses amounted to
$120 billion in 2021, while Swiss Re
https://www.reuters.com/markets/
commodities/us-storms-make-2021-one-most-costly-record-insurers-swiss-re-says-2021-12-14
in December put the tally at $105 billion.
Insured losses hit a record $170 billion in 2017, Aon said,
including losses from U.S. hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.
(Reporting by Carolyn Cohn. Editing by Jane Merriman)
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