Worldwide natural disasters caused overall insured losses of $80 billion in the first half of 2025, up from $64 billion in the first half of 2024, according to a report Tuesday from Munich Re America.
The insured losses were “significantly” higher than the average for the previous 10 years and the previous 30 years of $41 billion and $26 billion, respectively.
First-half 2025 insured losses also were the second-highest in the first half of any year since Munich Re records began in 1980. Only the first half of 2011 was higher, attributable to the severe earthquake and destructive tsunami in Japan.
Weather disasters caused 98% of insured losses, with earthquakes accounting for 2%.
The January wildfires in the greater Los Angeles area were the most costly natural disaster in the first half, with insured losses estimated at $40 billion.
“These are real and material losses that are increasing,” said Mark Bove, Princeton, New Jersey-based meteorologist and natural catastrophe solutions manager for Munich Re America.
Separately, in its Natural Catastrophe Review for January-June 2025, Willis Towers Watson said, “Worldwide, insured losses from natural catastrophes now consistently exceed $100 billion per year.”
The Willis report noted the increasing emergence of severe convective storm as a leading driver of loss.
“After two years in a row with insured losses in excess of $50 billion, no one can consider severe convective storms (SCS) in the United States as a ‘secondary’ peril. The combination of explosive growth in exposure and more favorable environments for storm genesis has raised SCS losses to be roughly equal to losses from hurricane damage over the same time frame,” Willis said.
