What natural disasters cost the global economy in 2020

Covid-19 is clearly the crisis that defined 2020, but millions of people were forced to grapple with natural disasters alongside the pandemic. A Biblical deluge of record-breaking Atlantic hurricanes, devastating wildfires, floods, and even locust storms added up to one of the world’s most damaging and expensive years of natural disasters in the last half-century.

According to a Dec. 15 analysis by the reinsurance giant Swiss Re, global economic losses from natural disasters amounted to $175 billion this year. Of that, $76 billion were insured, the fifth-highest total since 1970. With some notable spikes in 2005 (Hurricane Katrina) and 2017 (Harvey, Irma, and Maria), average annual insured losses have risen steadily in the last few decades, up from $7.4 billion, adjusted for inflation, in 1979. That’s the result of two main factors: Rising property values in developing countries, increasing insurance coverage in developed countries, and climate change driving more frequent and severe storms and wildfires across the board.

This year, the most expensive series of events was the Atlantic hurricane season, according to a Dec. 28 report from the UK-based nonprofit Christian Aid, with a record 30 named storms, 12 of which made landfall in the US. The figures below capture insured losses only; the full scale of damage is much higher.

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