According to global reinsurance company Munich Re, 2025 was the costliest year ever for insured losses from non-peak catastrophe perils, making up the bulk of the total as global insured natural disaster losses reached around US $108 billion.Wildfires, flooding and severe thunderstorms accounted for the majority of natural disaster losses paid by the insurance and reinsurance industry last year, the reinsurer explained this morning.Total economic losses from natural disasters were around US $224 billion in 2025, which was below the 10-year average.But insured losses surpassed the $100 billion mark again, reaching around $108 billion and just above the 10-year average, according to Munich Re’s estimates, with weather-related disasters accounting for 92% of economic losses and for 97% of insured losses in 2025.

Thomas Blunck, Member of the Board of Management at Munich Re commented, “The year got off to a rough start, with very high losses caused by the wildfires in Los Angeles.Sheer luck spared the United States from hurricane landfalls in 2025.But the country is still number one in loss statistics, owing to the increasing trend towards very considerable damage caused by non-peak perils.

“We need to be realistic: Adapting to these risks is essential.In line with our new multi-year strategy Ambition 2030, Munich Re is ready to deploy its expertise and financial strength to take on even more natural disaster risks and strengthen the insurance safety net for the global economy.” Munich Re estimates that around $98 billion of the insured loss total is attributable to non-peak perils, so-called secondary peril events.That was higher than the inflation-adjusted averages for the past 10 and 30 years for non-peak peril losses, which stand at $90 billion and $33 billion respectively.

The world and the insurance industry were spared a heavier cost for the year given the lack of US landfalling hurricanes in 2025, Munich Re noted.Uninsured losses in 2025 were below the 10-year average, given the large contribution from the California wildfires, but excluding that event the protection gap between economic and insured losses was in-line with the 10-year average, the reinsurance company explained.Severe thunderstorms, or severe convective storms, in the United States was a again a meaningful contributor to the global insured loss burden.

Munich Re estimated that insured losses from the severe thunderstorm peril reached $42 billion in the US for 2025, significantly above the 10-year average of $29 billion.The costliest insured disaster losses of 2025 were the Los Angeles, California wildfires at an estimated $40 billion, followed by a multi-day southern US severe thunderstorm and tornado event in March at $7 billion, a May tornado and severe storm outbreak in the US at $4 billion, hurricane Melissa’s Caribbean impacts at $3 billion and a further May US tornado and storm outbreak at $2.9 billion, Munich Re’s data shows.Munich Re’s estimate for $108 billion of insured natural catastrophe and weather losses for 2025 compares to ..

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