This is the staggering cost of disasters around the world
Camp Fire in California was the world's costliest event of last year. Image: REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
Stay up to date:
Global Health
Natural and man-made disasters caused $165 billion of economic losses worldwide last year according to estimates from insurance giant Swiss Re. At least $85 billion of those losses were covered by insurance companies. The losses from natural catasrophes in 2017 and 2018 combined were the highest ever over a two year period.
Camp Fire in California in November was the world's costliest event of last year, resulting in $12 billion of insured losses. It was followed by Hurricane Michael in the U.S. and Typhoon Jebi in Japan. Globally, more than 13,500 people died or went missing in disaster events in 2018, one of the lowest totals in a single year.
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
The Agenda Weekly
A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda
You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.
More on Health and Healthcare SystemsSee all
Shyam Bishen
April 24, 2024
Shyam Bishen and Annika Green
April 22, 2024
Johnny Wood
April 17, 2024
Adrian Gore
April 15, 2024
Fatemeh Aminpour, Ilan Katz and Jennifer Skattebol
April 15, 2024