23 March 2026

Satellite technology, in particular, advanced applications developed through the EU’s Copernicus programme, offers a transformational approach to managing environmental risks. By leveraging Earth Observation (EO) data – a field in which Europe is a global leader – insurance companies and supervisory authorities can strengthen their risk management efforts and improve overall disaster preparedness.

WMO

23 March 2026

WMO’s State of the Global Climate report 2025 confirms that 2015-2025 are the hottest 11-years on record, and that 2025 was the second or third hottest year on record, at about 1.43 °C above the 1850-1900 average. Extreme events around the world, including intense heat, heavy rainfall and tropical cyclones, caused disruption and devastation and highlighted the vulnerability of our inter-connected economies and societies.

WMO

23 March 2026

This is a supplement to the WMO State of the Climate 2025 report. It expands on the summary of significant high-impact events in the main report, with a broader range of events included, including some events which were climatically extreme but had limited immediate impacts.

OECD

5 March 2026

Natural hazards, cyber attacks and infectious disease outbreaks can lead to devastating financial consequences that many individuals, households or businesses would struggle to absorb. Insurance can provide a critical source of funding to absorb losses and support recovery. However, evolving weather and environmental risks, fast-moving technological changes and other factors are testing the ability of private insurance markets to achieve broad financial protection against these risks.

This report aims to help governments strengthen financial resilience against catastrophic risks. It provides a framework to assess the need for government-supported financial protection and examines approaches to supporting insurance coverage for wildfires and floods in particular – as two important and growing risks in many countries.

Swiss Re

March 2026

Insured natural catastrophes losses in 2025 totaled USD 107 billion, according to Swiss Re Institute's latest sigma publication, which documents the dominance of secondary perils including wildfires and severe convective storms in driving claims.

While losses in 2025 were below USD 140 billion implied by the long-term trend, this doesn't reflect a reduction in underlying risk. The persistent rise in exposure that accompanies economic growth suggests the next major catastrophe, when it occurs, will cause significantly higher insured losses.

World Bank

11 February 2026

In fiscal year 2025, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) supported over 100 countries through 328 grants. These activities informed $8.67 billion in World Bank disaster and climate resilience investments—a ratio of $253 informed for every $1 disbursed. This reflects the Facility’s catalytic role in shaping risk-informed development at scale.

21 January 2026

In 2025, the estimated direct economic costs from global natural perils were USD296 billion. The private insurance market and public insurance entities covered an estimated USD129 billion of that total. The 5-year annual average loss for insurers from natural catastrophes has grown to USD155 billion as changes in hazard, societal, and economic behavior combine to drive more expensive disasters.

AON

20 January 2026

Natural disasters had a huge impact in 2025. Even though the cost of overall damage was lower than in recent years, events like the California wildfires and major U.S. storms still added up to $260 billion in losses. While the total damage was down from $397 billion in 2024, the amount covered by insurance stayed high at $127 billion, reinforcing the importance of capital for recovery.

World Economic Forum

14 January 2026

The Global Risks Report 2026, the 21st edition of this annual report, marks the second half of a turbulent decade. The report analyses global risks through three timeframes to support decision-makers in balancing current crises and longer-term priorities. Chapter 1 presents the findings of this year’s Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS), which captures insights from over 1,300 experts worldwide. It explores risks in the current or immediate term (in 2026), the short-to-medium term (to 2028) and in the long term (to 2036). Chapter 2 explores the range of implications of these risks and their interconnections, through six in-depth analyses of selected themes. Below are the key findings of the report, in which we compare the risk outlooks across the three-time horizons.

14 January 2026

Cyber incidents created many headlines in 2025 and are still the biggest worry for companies globally in 2026, according to the Allianz Risk Barometer. The past year has also been a significant one for accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), which is reflected in its ranking as the biggest riser in the annual survey at #2 as a complex source of operational, legal, and reputational risk for businesses. Still, close to half of respondents believe AI is bringing more benefits to their industry than risks. However, a fifth say the opposite. For the first time ever, Business interruption is not in the top two risks, dropping to #3. Yet, this peril remains a significant concern given it can be a consequence of other risks in the global top 10.

Factors such as a quieter hurricane season in terms of losses during 2025, mean Natural catastrophes drops to #5, year-on-year. Meanwhile, Political Risks and Violence climbs from #9 to #7, driven by increasing concerns over geopolitical volatility and conflicts around the world.

Munich Re

13 January 2026

Natural disasters caused significant losses worldwide in 2025. All in all, damage amounting to some US$ 224bn was incurred, of which insurers covered around US$ 108bn. This means that 2025 joins a growing list of years with insured losses exceeding the US$ 100bn mark, despite losses being lower year on year. In 2024, inflation-adjusted overall losses had totalled US$ 368bn, of which US$ 147bn had been insured. Weather disasters accounted for 92% of all 2025 losses and for 97% of insured losses.

Germanwatch

11 November 2025

Scorching heat, heavy rainfalls, raging wildfires, deadly floods, and devastating storms: The manifestations of extreme weather events have become too common in a new reality worldwide. The CRI 2026 sheds light on inaction’s growing cost. It reveals the mounting human and economic toll.

From 1995 to 2024, more than 832,000 lives were lost and direct economic losses of nearly USD 4.5 trillion (inflation-adjusted) were recorded, driven by more than 9,700 extreme weather events. The frequency and intensity of climate-related disasters continue to rise, and these figures underscore the urgent need for climate action.

13 October 2025

The 2025 edition spotlights how social fragmentation is compounding the world’s vulnerability to risk. In the face of the exacerbation of these polycrisis worldwide, confidence in the capacity of public authorities to handle them is eroding, while the unprecedented pace at which technological risks are emerging makes risk management and decision-making increasingly complex. In this context, the insurance sector is a key player in offering solutions at the local level.

Council on Economic Policies (CEP) - Jérôme Crugnola-Humbert

8 September 2025

The world’s economy is insufficiently protected against climate disasters. The accelerating pace and severity of extreme weather events are exposing significant gaps in our collective physical and financial resilience systems. In a growing number of regions, communities and businesses are facing mounting economic losses without adequate financial protection. This underscores the urgent need for comprehensive climate adaptation measures coupled with expanded insurance coverage.

2 September 2025

The global insurance industry stands at an inflection point where unprecedented natural catastrophe losses, averaging $132 billion over the past five years (compared with $104 billion in the preceding period), are no longer statistical outliers but the new reality. Verisk’s latest models estimate the global modeled insured AAL from natural catastrophes at $152 billion, which suggests the industry should be prepared, in any given year, for total annual insured property losses from natural catastrophes that far exceed that amount.

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)

27 May 2025

Disasters are increasingly expensive and their impacts under-estimated. The Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR) 2025, highlights how direct disaster costs have grown to approximately $202 billion annually, but that the true costs of disasters is over $2.3 trillion when cascading and ecosystem costs are taken into account. The burden of this cost- and the debt it creates- disproportionately fall on developing countries, but it doesn't need to be this way.

MarshMcLennan

February 2023

The latest output in the Rethinking Flood series, "Staying above water: A systemic response to rising flood risk", illustrates how the transformation of flood risk management can play out along three ways forward: Living with floods, building strategic protection, and preparing for relocation.

MarshMcLennan

December 2021

Preparing for a wetter world is part of Rethinking Flood, a series of publications examining the implications of flooding for businesses, governments, and society.

Business exposure to flood risk is growing, and it is critical for firms to uncover hidden vulnerabilities propagating through their value chain. This report explores the implications of flooding for firms and presents five principles that can be integrated in Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) practices to build resilience.

OECD

11 October 2021

The financial management of catastrophe risks presents an important public policy challenge for governments across the world. Climate change, the increasing reliance on digital technologies and socioeconomic trends such as globalisation and urbanisation are affecting the frequency and severity of the floods, cyclones, cyber-attacks and infectious disease outbreaks that produce significant financial, economic and social costs each year.

This report examines the role of catastrophe risk insurance programmes (i.e. loss-sharing arrangements within the insurance sector and often in partnership with governments) in broadening the availability of affordable insurance coverage for catastrophe risks and limiting risks to public finances.

MarshMcLennan

June 2021

'Sunk Costs: The Socioeconomic Impacts of Flooding' is the first publication in Rethinking Flood, a four-part series examining the implications of flood risk for corporates, governments, and society. The report offers an overview of the current state and trends of flood risk globally. It discusses the economic costs of flooding, its multi-sectoral impacts, as well as its societal and environmental consequences. The report highlights the potential for flood risk to exacerbate pre-existing socioeconomic inequalities and discusses the role insurance can play to protect vulnerable communities. It additionally analyzes government strategies to narrow the protection gap and enhance national flood resilience, presenting their fiscal costs and potential drawbacks.

January 2021 - UNEP FI

22 leading insurers and reinsurers from across the globe worked with UNEP FI to develop the first comprehensive guidance for the insurance industry to identify and disclose the impact of climate change on their businesses. This report represents the largest collaborative effort by market participants to pilot some of the most challenging recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

Published: 1 August 2023

This book is about the critical yet little-known work of “Protection Gap Entities” (PGEs), in disaster protection. Disasters, such as floods, earthquakes, and terrorist attacks, are becoming more frequent and more intense. These disasters threaten not only life, but also livelihood, causing the loss of homes and jobs that can scar the lives of those affected. Disaster insurance, by providing funds for reconstruction, plays an essential role in limiting these consequences of disaster. Yet disaster insurance is under threat in many contexts, becoming unaffordable or being withdrawn entirely.

Published: July 2019

In this background paper submitted to the Global Commission on Adaptation, Cass Business School’s Professor Paula Jarzabkowski, Birkbeck, University of London’s Dr Konstantinos Chalkias and their co-authors make seven recommendations to maximise the benefits of insurance for climate adaptation.

Published: June 2018

The challenges posed by the growing catastrophe insurance protection gap, particularly those of rebuilding in the aftermath of disaster, have prompted the generation of entities, which we label Protection Gap Entities (PGEs). These PGEs bring together market and non-market stakeholders in an effort to address the protection gap. They differ considerably in governance, political economies, points of origin, perils, and means of funding loss. Yet PGEs have the same broad goal:

To transform uninsured risk into insurance-based products that can be transferred into global financial markets to provide capital for recovery following a disaster.

Floods can cause injury and loss of life, considerable economic costs, and damage to the environment and cultural heritage. Serious floods have become more frequent in Europe. In recent years, more than twice as many flash floods of medium to large magnitude have been registered as in the late eighties. Climate change is an aggravating factor, triggering changes in precipitation and weather patterns, sea level rises and, consequently, more frequent and severe floods.

Reinsurance pools seek to provide insurance where there is none or where it is not readily available, but the demand for them is not as great as it should be. To introduce this special report, Jonathan Gale, chief executive, Bermuda Reinsurance and managing director at AXA XL, writes that the industry needs to develop a broader approach to how the risk is assumed and accounted.

There is a growing consensus that insurance, risk transfer, and sharing mechanisms have an important and growing role to play, particularly in offsetting the economic impacts associated with extreme events. What is less clear is the extent to which such instruments encourage adaptation programmes and policies that would serve to minimise future loss and damage and, hence, contribute to sustainable development. This paper does not pretend to offer answers, but rather contributes to the emerging discussion and brings to that discussion a water lens.

Ramboll and the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) were contracted by the European Commission (EC) to conduct a study on the insurance of weather and climate-related disaster risk, and to create an inventory and analysis of mechanisms to support damage prevention in the European Union (EU). The study provides an overview of the use of insurance against natural disasters. It suggests general recommendations as well as specific recommendations on the role of the European Commission in addressing the issues uncovered, and encourages stakeholder’s efforts and best practices observed across the EU.