More people have died in natural disasters this year than at any time in the last 13 years.

Around 58,000 people died in the severe earthquake in Turkey and Syria in February alone, as Munich Re announced in its natural catastrophe balance sheet on Thursday. Worldwide, earthquakes, floods and storms claimed 62,000 lives between January and June. The last time there were more was in 2010, when 295,000 natural catastrophe deaths were recorded following three earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and China. "In the case of weather-related natural catastrophes, we have drastically reduced the number of victims through early warning systems; in the case of earthquakes, we need to become less vulnerable - for example by adapting our construction methods," said Ernst Rauch, chief climate scientist at the world's largest reinsurer, to the Reuters news agency.

The victims of the earthquakes also had to bear a large part of the costs. At 40 billion dollars, the quake caused more than a third of global natural catastrophe losses, but insurers and reinsurers are only liable for around five billion dollars. Although there is compulsory insurance for residential buildings in Turkey, the sum insured is capped at the equivalent of 34,000 dollars per residential unit. Businesses are not covered, and roads and bridges are generally not insured either.

In many European countries, building insurance policies do not normally cover flooding either. Although the floods in northern Italy in May caused ten billion dollars in damage, insurers only paid out 1.1 billion. In Germany, compulsory insurance against floods and heavy rainfall has been under discussion since the flood disaster in the Ahr valley. "We need to adapt much better to the consequences of global warming in the form of more frequent or more severe weather catastrophes - through appropriate construction methods, future-proof site selection and insurance cover against the direct financial consequences," explained Munich Re Board member Thomas Blunck.

WILL "EL NINO" REALLY LEAD TO FEWER HURRICANES?

At around 110 (2022: 120) billion dollars, global natural catastrophe losses were slightly lower than in the first six months of 2022, but above the average of the past ten years (98 billion dollars). 43 (previous year: 47) billion dollars of this was insured, which is less than 40 percent of the economic loss.

Insurance density is highest in the USA. According to Munich Re's data, severe thunderstorms with hailstorms and tornadoes are becoming more frequent there in addition to hurricanes. In the first half of the year, they caused damage of 35 billion dollars, of which more than 25 billion is insured. A series of thunderstorms in Texas in June alone cost insurers seven billion dollars. And the hurricane season that hits the USA every year has only just begun. There were already four storms in June that were so severe that the weather services gave them names.

Experts had expected a mild hurricane season this year due to the "El Nino" weather phenomenon in the Atlantic. "It is of limited use as a forecasting tool," warns climatologist Rauch. There is only a statistical correlation between ocean currents and the frequency of hurricanes. "This year, the sharp rise in the surface temperature of the water in the Atlantic, which favors hurricanes, is having the opposite effect." There are indications that this also has something to do with climate change. "This suggests that we could have an active hurricane season after all," says Rauch. However, it is difficult to make a reliable forecast.

(Report by Alexander Hübner, edited by Kerstin Dörr. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).