Natcat 2025

Highlight Stories

Key messages

  • Steady Loss Growth

    Natural catastrophe losses are on a long-term upward trend with insured losses projected to reach USD 145 billion in 2025 — even as record-breaking events like the LA wildfires remain within expected growth patterns.​

  • Peak Loss Risk

    While secondary perils can trigger significant losses, it’s the major primary perils — like hurricanes and earthquakes — that drive extreme “peak loss” years. If 2025 becomes such a year, insured losses could reach USD 300 billion, a risk the reinsurance industry is well capitalized to absorb.​

  • Cost and Resilience

    Rising insurance costs are being driven by economic fundamentals — including inflation and construction costs — not just hazard exposure. Long-term affordability and resilience will require stronger prevention and adaptation efforts across all stakeholders.​

  • Our recent analysis of over 200 in-house models and the loss trend over the last 30 years show what is at stake: When a severe hurricane or a major earthquake hits an urban area in a country with significant insurance takeup, insured losses could easily reach USD 300 billion in that year.

Nat Cat losses in numbers

  • Economic losses
    USD 328 billion
  • Insured losses
    USD 146 billion
  • Protection gap
    57%

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expert insights The true costs of LA's devastating wildfires

Hurricane Katrina Are we ready?

Hurricane Katrina caused insured losses of USD 105 billion, in 2024 prices. If it were to strike the same region today, Katrina would not cause the same level of destruction it did in 2005. This is because the flood defenses around New Orleans have been greatly improved with completion of the Hurricane Storm Damage Risk Reduction System in 2011. Further, with population levels in the New Orleans-Metairie Metropolitan Area still below pre-Katrina levels, economic output of the region has also fallen. However, while exposures are less, housing, construction and repair costs have risen by more than inflation since 2005. Taking all such variables into account, Swiss Re's in-house models simulate that the insured losses from the occurrence of Katrina today would trend towards USD 100 billion in 2024 prices, not much less than the inflation-adjusted loss outcome of 2005.

Further nat cat insights

Mitigating climate risk

The effects of climate change and global warming are already evident and shaking up our risk landscape: warmer average temperatures, rising sea levels, melting ice caps, longer and more frequent heatwaves, erratic rainfall patterns and more weather extremes.

A most urgent question we need to ask is not only how to tackle climate change, but also how we can best adapt to a changing climate and avert the most damaging consequences – in short, how to mitigate climate risk.

Discover Mitigating climate risk