SECOND-QUARTER NATURAL DISASTERS WERE MAINLY UNINSURED

The large number of natural catastrophes in the second quarter compared with the unnaturally benign first quarter will not have a serious effect on reinsurers, since the majority of the economic losses were uninsured, according to Germany’s Munich Re. In an addendum to its half-year figures, the reinsurer revealed that although the Texas April hailstorm, with insured losses of more than $1.1bn, was one of the costliest hailstorms ever, the forest fires that raged in south-west Europe and North America had a low impact on insurers “because forests are generally not insured”. A similar situation applied to European drought losses from farming, where an estimated economic loss of 10bn euro was almost completely uninsured because losses as a result of heatwaves and drought “are largely uncovered in the European Union”.