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Asia – the peak risk of the future
15 June 2009
Insured catastrophe losses in Asia may still be tiny, but the international insurance industry is beginning to wake up to the region’s prospects.
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[climate change]
If a magnitude 7.9 earthquake were to hit a populated area in southern California today, it would take no time for talk of underwriting losses and rate hikes to begin resonating through the insurance industry.
But when the Wenchuan earthquake – which measured 7.9 on the Richter scale – tore through Sichuan province in China in May 12 last year, the response from insurers and reinsurers was muted.
Although the tremor killed 88,000 people and was responsible for nearly half the global economic losses in 2008 from natural and man-made catastrophes at a cost of $124bn, the cost for the insurance industry was far lower. Swiss Re estimates insured life and non-life losses were a mere $750m.
The Sichuan earthquake was not the only large catastrophe to hit Asia last year. In January, eastern China was bombarded with snow storms and freezing rain, which killed at least 129 people...
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