Natural Disasters Are Taking a Bigger Toll on Insurers

Last week, insurance broker Aon reported that insured losses from natural disasters reached $91 billion in the first nine months of 2026. While this figure puts this year on track to be a less drastic one for natural catastrophes, a look at the timeline of losses since 2000 shows that despite ups and downs in some years, natural disaster losses are rising, especially insured ones.

While the number and extent of natural catastrophes fluctuates naturally and has hit a lull in the past couple of years, an expansion of properties covered by insurance and more high-value properties cropping up in dangerous areas like forest and coastlines means that insured losses are rising nevertheless. The fact that the cost of rebuilding is drastically up due to inflation and material shortages compounds the cost crunch.

Natural disasters that hit developed countries typically result in higher insured losses and Aon states that more than 60 percent of all insured losses in the first three quarters of this year occurred in the United States. This was mainly due to storms, which also caused high insured losses in Europe, the release states.

Historical Aon data shows that the highest insured losses in the 21st century occurred in 2011 and 2017 at $204 billion each. In the former year, a tsumani struck Japan, resulting in the Fukushima disaster, while the latter year saw Hurricanes Harvey and Irma hit the United States. These have been the costliest storms in the U.S. after Hurricane Katrina.