Climate Change Led to Record Insurance Payouts in 2020
Two new reports put price tags on the year’s warming-fueled severe weather events.
A village is flooded after a dam broke following cyclone Amphan's landfall in Shyamnagar, Bangladesh, on May 21.
Photographer: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP via Getty Images
Covid continues to cause severe economic distress, but natural disasters fueled by a warming planet also took their toll this year, causing record damage and displacing millions according to two new assessments of insurance claims in 2020.
Christian Aid, the relief arm of 41 churches in the U.K. and Ireland, ranked the 15 most destructive climate disasters of the year based on insurance losses. Cyclone Amphan, which hit the Bay of Bengal in May, was the most expensive single event, displacing 4.9 million people and costing $13 billion. Each of the top 10 caused at least $1.5 billion in damages, and five cost $5 billion or more.
Because the price tag to insurers was higher in rich countries, Christian Aid noted, its report likely undercounts devastation to poorer countries. “South Sudan, for example, experienced one of its worst floods on record, which killed 138 people and destroyed the year’s crops,” the report said.