In Calgary, to borrow a popular expression, they had never seen it. In June, the canadian city was hit by a hail storm where the hail stones as big as oranges banged to near 100 kilometers an hour the cars and the houses. The invoice of the claim amounted to one billion dollars, or hail storm the most expensive ever occurred in Canada. In this first semester 2020, North America has been the victim of many weather events, including hurricanes Amanda and Cristobal (tens of dead), as well as Australia and the Siberian arctic, ravaged by fires, or even China, with floods along the Yangtze. India, meanwhile, has enjoyed the cyclone the most destructive in its history. Amphan, it is his name, has resulted in economic losses in the amount of 13 billion dollars ! In each disaster, the note is salt. The reinsurer Swiss Re estimated at $ 21 billion the cost to the insurers of the only storms in north america.
In total, for the first half-year, "global economic losses" due to all disasters, natural and human, amounted to $ 75 billion. This amount is higher than the balance sheet for the same period in 2019, which was 57 billion dollars in losses to the global economy. It is, however, significantly below the average of the previous ten years (112 billion dollars). Insurers have supported approximately 40% of these losses, or $ 31 billion. Again, this amount is lower than in the previous ten years, which amounted to $ 36 billion per year, on average.
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Confined, the man has taken less risks
If the economic losses due to natural disasters have increased between 2019 and 2020, those related to man, in contrast, have declined. It is, says Swiss Re, the positive effect of the global crisis linked to the sars coronavirus. By confining them, by reducing the rate of fire in factories and transport, the man has taken less risks. The event "human" covered by insurers (fires, industrial accidents, etc.) are so rare : the economic losses due to man grown from $ 5 billion during the first half of 2019 to 3 billion this year, a drop of 40 % !
The swiss reinsurer warns, however : these costs do not include the claims related to the Covid-19. But experts from Swiss Re worried about much more natural disasters, whose effect and impact are growing, no doubt due to the effect of global warming in progress. "Climate change is a systemic risk," explains Jérôme Jean Hægeli, group chief economist, Swiss Re. And, unlike the Covid-19, it has no expiration date. "
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