In the first half of 2024, the insurance industry faced an extraordinary financial impact from natural catastrophes, with global insured losses totaling approximately $61 billion. This figure represents a substantial burden on insurers, primarily driven by severe convective storm (SCS) activity in the United States, which alone accounted for 61% of the total losses, equating to $37 billion.
According to Gallagher Re’s latest Natural Catastrophe and Climate Report for the first half of 2024, the total economic damage from these catastrophes reached around $128 billion, closely aligning with the decade’s average of $133 billion. The report highlights six major events that each inflicted economic losses exceeding $5 billion, affecting regions across Asia, the United States, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America.
The period also saw nineteen events causing insured losses of over $1 billion each, marking the second-highest total for the first half of any year in the records, just behind the totals from 2023 and 2022. Notably, twelve of these events resulted in multi-billion-dollar losses, further illustrating the severe impact of the catastrophes as detailed by Gallagher Re.