Disaster losses drop in 2025, picture still 'alarming': Munich Re

Natural disaster losses worldwide dropped sharply to $224 billion in 2025, reinsurer Munich Re said Tuesday, but warned of a still "alarming" picture of extreme weather events likely driven by climate change, Report informs via AFP.

The figure was down nearly 40 percent from a year earlier, in part because no hurricane struck the US mainland for the first time in several years.

Nevertheless, "the big picture was alarming with regard to floods, severe... storms and wildfires in 2025", said Munich Re, a Germany-based provider of insurance for the insurance industry.

The costliest disaster of the year came in the form of Los Angeles wildfires in January, with total losses of $53 billion and insured losses of around $40 billion, Munich Re said in its annual disaster report.

It was striking how many extreme events were likely influenced by climate change in 2025 and it was just chance that the world was spared potentially higher losses, according to the group.

"The planet has a fever, and as a result we are seeing a cluster of severe and intense weather events," Tobias Grimm, Munich Re's chief climate scientist, told AFP.

According to Munich Re's report, insured losses for 2025 came in at $108 billion, also sharply down on last year.

Around 17,200 lives were lost in natural disasters worldwide, significantly higher than about 11,000 in 2024, but below the 10-year average of 17,800, it said.

Grimm said 2025 was a year with "two faces".

"The first half of the year was the costliest loss period the insurance industry has ever experienced," he said -- but the second half saw the lowest losses in a decade.