Australia’s insured catastrophe losses fell to $500 million last year, the lowest figure since 2004, Aon says.

For the first time since 1982, no catastrophe was declared by the Insurance Council of Australia in the calendar year.

Insured cat losses had topped $3.6 billion in 2023, according to the broker’s latest Climate and Catastrophe Insight report.

“This was a dramatic year-on-year decline,” Aon’s Asia-Pacific head of climate analytics Tom Mortlock said. “Last year was a welcome relief from previous years, when we saw some of the highest insurance losses from weather events on record.”  

Aon says Australia and New Zealand – which also registered no significant disasters last year – stand “in stark contrast” to the rest of the world.

Global disaster-related economic losses topped $562 billion last year – more than 10% above the average since 2000.

Insured losses totalled $US145 billion ($223.96 billion), with the US accounting for 78%. It was the sixth-costliest year on record.

Global insured losses for the first quarter of this year are estimated to be at least $82 billion – the highest figure since $125 billion in the opening quarter of 2011, and the second-highest on record. Costs were driven by the California wildfires in January.

Aon says Australians still face high insurance bills, despite last year’s reprieve.  

Underinsurance and rising premiums present challenges and the insurance gap “continues to be of concern”, Dr Mortlock says.  

Increasing resilience to climate risks is a “key lever to maintaining affordable and available insurance coverage”, he adds.

Hurricane Helene was the costliest event of 2024 by economic loss, at an estimated $US75 billion ($115.84 billion). North Carolina was the worst-hit area, due to widespread floods.  

The storm ranks among the 15 costliest natural disasters since 1900 on a price-inflated basis, and among the eight costliest tropical cyclones.

Five other events led to economic losses above $US10 billion ($15.45 billion) last year: Hurricane Milton, the Noto earthquake in Japan, the Valencia floods in Spain, central China floods and Typhoon Yagi.

See the report here.

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