Allianz Risk Barometer 2025 -
Global risk #3: Natural catastrophes (29%)

Hurricane Helene made landfall as a Category 4 storm in the Big Bend area of the Florida Gulf coast in September, bringing damaging winds and storm surge. The most severe impacts were felt across the southern Appalachians, where record-breaking flooding resulted in hundreds of fatalities and billions in property damage. Economic losses are currently estimated in the range of $56bn, while insured losses are close to $16bn [5].

Hurricane Milton: just two weeks after Helene, Milton made landfall as a Category 3 storm in Sarasota County, Florida, after becoming the fastest Atlantic storm to intensify from tropical depression to a Category 5 hurricane. Economic losses are currently estimated in the range of $38bn, with insured losses of $25bn, the costliest storm of the year for insurers [6].

Severe convective storms in the US continue to drive losses for the second consecutive year. More than 1,600 events have been reported during 2024, at least 15 of them have caused losses of S1bn+, with two individual events reaching at least $5bn each. The US SCS combined loss for 2023 and 2024 is now above $114bn, a threshold that had only been breached twice on the US mainland for tropical cyclone (2004/2005 and 2020/2021) [7].

Natural catastrophes in Canada have resulted in the most expensive year on record for insurers, with losses exceeding US$6bn. The Calgary hailstorm in August, with hailstones exceeding 7cm, became the country’s costliest insured SCS event on record, with $2.2bn. Extreme rainfall caused by Hurricane Debby’s remnants led to considerable flooding in Ontario and Montreal, which resulted in insured losses above $1.9bn [8]. Other notable events include Toronto floods and the Jasper Wildfire, both in July.

Storm Boris: a very slow-moving low-pressure system caused torrential rains and caused considerable flooding in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, and Italy, among other countries. Insured losses are expected to range between $2bn and $3bn, with economic losses over $20bn. [9] Many areas in the Alps saw their earliest snowfall on record. However, recent investments in flood defenses, especially in major cities, effectively helped to reduce both economical and human losses, highlighting the importance of investing in resilience measures.

Other relevant flooding events include the severe flash flooding in eastern and southern Spain in October, which severely impacted densely populated areas such as Valencia and Alicante, leaving hundreds of casualties and insured losses expected to exceed $4bn [10]. In April, a flash flooding event in the Arabian Peninsula, led to the heaviest rainfall in 75 years of record-keeping in the United Arab Emiratesand insured losses of almost $3bn [11]. In southern Brazil, extreme rainfall led to the worst flooding event in Porto Alegre in more than 80 years. Millions of hectares of crops were lost, and insured losses are estimated to reach $2bn, making it the costliest flood event on record. In Africa, the northward shift in the monsoon brought significant rainfall to the Western Sahara, leading to an extreme flood season that caused widespread damage to thousands of homes, livestock, and agriculture. In Chad, Nigeria, Mali and Niger, rainfall totals were among the heaviest seen in decades. [12]

Asia saw two of the most relevant earthquakes in 2024: a M7.5 in the Noto Peninsula, Japan, resulted in insured losses of $3bn [13], with economic losses reaching $12bn. In Hualien, Taiwan, a M7.4 struck in April, leading to economic losses of at least $3bn .

Typhoons Yagi, Gaemi and Shanshan affected several areas in the Philippines, Vietnam, China, Thailand, Myanmar, Taiwan, North Korea, and Japan. The combined economic loss of landfalling typhoons in East Asia is estimated to surpass $20bn. Yagi, the second strongest tropical cyclone globally in 2024, only behind Hurricane Beryl, became Vietnam’s costliest weather event, with an economic loss of $3.3bn. [14]

Wildfire: devastating wildfires in the Chilean regions of Valparaíso, O’Higgins and Araucanía [15] resulted in more than $1bn in economic losses and 134 fatalities . In Brazil, a record-breaking number of wildfires caused widespread damage, deteriorated air quality and generated hundreds of millions of dollars in economic losses.

Drought events in the central and western US are expected to result in a multi-billion-dollar economic loss. Severe conditions also impacted the Amazon River basin and the Pantanal Wetlands in South America as well as much of southern Africa.