A US$653-billion global price tag made 2017-2018 the most expensive two-year period ever for extreme weather, according to a report issued last month by UK-based Aon, the world’s biggest insurance broker based on revenue.
The two-year total included $215 billion in costs produced by hundreds of cyclones, floods, and wildfires last year. That figure “is significantly higher than that estimated [earlier in January] by rival insurer Munich Re, which set the bill for extreme weather in 2018 at $160 billion,” BusinessGreen reports. “Moreover, when natural disasters such as earthquakes are added to the mix, the 2018 figure rises to $235 billion after 394 individual natural catastrophe events.”