Unprecedented levels of damage from storms this year upending U.S. towns
Waves of severe thunderstorms in the U.S. during the first half of this year led to $34 billion in insured losses, an unprecedented level of financial damage in such a short time, according to Swiss Re Group, as climate change contributes to the frequency and severity of violent meteorological events.
Damages from convective storms in the U.S., those that can come with hail, lightning, heavy rain and high winds, accounted for nearly 70% of the $50 billion in global catastrophic damages so far this year, the reinsurer said Wednesday. Those global figures includes earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.
The storms in the U.S. were so severe, there were 10 that resulted in damages of $1 billion or more, almost double the average recorded over the past decade, according to Swiss Re, and Texas was the state most severely effected.
“The effects of climate change can already be seen in certain perils like heatwaves, droughts, floods and extreme precipitation,” Swiss Re Group Chief Economist Jérôme Jean Haegeli said in a prepared statement. “Besides the impact of climate change, land use planning in more exposed coastal and riverine areas, and urban sprawl into the wilderness, generate a hard-to-revert combination of high value exposure in higher risk environments.”
There have been a multitude of high profile meteorological events to start the second half of the year including heatwaves in the U.S., northwestern China and southern Europe, and wildfires on Greek islands, Italy and in Algeria.
Damages and insurance losses from those events are still being tallied, Swiss Re said.
The figures for the first half of the year are in line with a report last month from another reinsurer, Munich Re, which said the series of thunderstorms that raked Texas in June was the most expensive single event in the U.S. for the year so far. The overall loss from those storms alone is estimated at approximately $8.4 billion.
“Devastating storms, which now seem to be the norm rather than the exception, are expected to continue to grow in intensity and severity,” wrote Marcus Winter, CEO, North America at Munich Reinsurance America.