Global losses from disaster events reached $45 billion in the first quarter of 2024, of which at least $17 billion was covered by insurance, with an estimated quarterly protection gap of 64%, according to insurance and reinsurance broker Aon.
Insurance and reinsurance industry losses of at least $17 billion from disasters comes in slightly above the average for the quarter of $16 billion, while economic losses of $45 billion is below the 21st-century Q1 average of $59 billion, and far lower than losses in Q1’23 of $149 billion.
The first event of the year was the Noto earthquake in Japan, which happened on New Year’s Day and claimed the lives of 245 people, and drove economic losses of an estimated $17.6 billion, making it the costliest event of the quarter.
“The number of billion-dollar events was 12, eight of which occurred in the United States, two in South America, and two in Asia. It is worth noting that these numbers are subject to change as individual event loss estimates tend to evolve even months after the date of occurrence,” says Aon.
After the earthquake in Japan, the extensive severe convective storm outbreak that impacted parts of the US in mid-March was the costliest from an economic perspective, at $4.5 billion.
Winter weather across China and Japan also drove a lot of losses in the quarter, with an economic total of $2.7 billion.
Given the severity of the Japan quake on New Year’s Day, it’s not surprising that Aon has reported in its quarterly catastrophe report that the Asia Pacific region accounted for the largest portion of global economic losses with a current preliminary estimate of $20 billion.
In terms of insured losses, severe convective storms in the US accounted for the most at almost $6 billion. The earthquake in Japan has so far led to insured losses of $1 billion, although Aon states that this figure is still preliminary and expected to evolve, potentially surpassing $1 billion.
