World set for big drop in annual disaster bill: Swiss Re

Terra Daily: The global death toll and financial cost of catastrophes has dropped sharply this year after reaching near record levels in 2008, initial estimates from reinsurer Swiss Re indicated Monday. With one month of the year left, the total cost to society of natural and man-made disasters had reached 52 billion dollars (34.7 billion euros), about one fifth of the 267 billion dollars in damage wrought in 2008, the reinsurer said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the global death toll fell to 12,000, just five percent of the 238,000 deaths recorded over the whole of last year, according to initial estimates from an annual study by one of the world's biggest reinsurers. The shift halved the bill to insurers, who were set to fork out 21 billion dollars for natural disasters and three billion for man made events compared to a total of 50 billion dollars in 2008, Swiss Re found.

Claims from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters during the first seven months of 2009 were nearly double the average over the last 20 years. "We were lucky, but that may not be the case next year," said Swiss Re chief economist Thomas Hess….