Swiss Re quantifies damage
Flood 2021 most expensive disaster so far
03/30/2022, 3:19 p.m
183 people die, whole areas are devastated: In the summer of last year, floods caused by heavy rains caused severe damage in Germany. Other countries are also affected. The reinsurer Swiss Re draws a loss balance.
According to reinsurer Swiss Re, the floods in Germany and its neighboring countries last summer were the costliest natural disasters ever recorded in Europe. The floods on the Ahr, Erft and other rivers have caused economic damage of more than 40 billion dollars (36 billion euros), according to the Swiss Re report on the natural disasters of 2021. Due to climate change, the risk of flooding will continue to increase.
In Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, extreme heavy rain triggered devastating floods in July, for example in the Ahr valley and on the Erft. More than 180 people died in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. Many homes were destroyed or damaged. The flood of the century also destroyed railway lines, roads, bridges, mobile phone masts and in many places the gas, electricity and water supply.
At the end of July, the General Association of the German Insurance Industry (GDV) spoke in a preliminary estimate of a loss amount of 4.5 to 5 billion euros. Swiss Re puts the damage from last summer’s floods in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and other neighboring countries at a total of $40 billion. Only $13 billion of that was insured.
This Wednesday, the federal cabinet passed its report on the flood disaster. The federal government therefore agreed to double the emergency financial aid provided by the federal states for affected areas to initially up to 400 million euros. The federal government has set up a special fund with a total volume of up to 30 billion euros to provide medium- and long-term support for reconstruction.
Increased risk of severe natural disasters
The year 2021 was also marked by flooding in other regions of the world, as the Swiss Re report goes on to say. For example, the USA was hit by destructive floods due to hurricane “Ida”. There were also particularly severe floods in China, India and the Philippines. “In 2021 alone we experienced more than 50 severe floods in the world,” said Swiss Re’s head of catastrophe losses, Martin Bertogg. “The floods affect almost a third of the world’s population, more than any other disaster.”
Swiss Re emphasized that three-quarters of the flood risks were not insured – and would continue to increase due to climate change and progressive urbanization. Global warming not only increases the risk of flooding, but also of storms and droughts.
The reinsurer put the total damage caused by flooding last year at $82 billion. Only $20 billion of that was insured. According to the report, insurance cover for floods in Asia is particularly bad. Only 7 percent of economic losses from floods are insured there, compared to 34 percent in Europe.
Global losses from natural disasters totaled $270 billion last year, according to Swiss Re. $111 billion of that was insured.