2005 - Biggest Payouts Ever For Natural Disasters For Insurance Companies

[hatrack]

Last year was the most expensive year on record for natural catastrophes. Hurricane Katrina was the most costly disaster in the U.S., but worldwide losses totaled over 210 billion dollars. And last year was not unique.

Over the past 30 years, there has been a 15-fold increase in insured losses from weather-related disasters. The increase is far greater than the growth in the number of insurance policies, the population, or inflation.

"The insurers now are unable to explain the rapidly rising losses that they're paying out," said Evan Mills of Lawrence Berkeley Labs.

But Lawrence Berkeley Labs researcher Dr. Evan Mills does have a possible explanation. In a study prepared for the nation's state insurance commissioners, Mills found that global warming and climate change would continue to produce more and greater weather catastrophes. "The one-in-100-year even becomes the one-in-ten-year event," said Mills. "And that is the trend for heat waves, floods, extreme fires, things of that sort."

EDIT

http://www.cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_074222421.html

[Dead_Parrot]

1. "The insurers now are unable to explain..."

Why, have they been living in a bunker for the last 20 years?
:dunce:

[Burried News]

2. Lloyds of London ain't happy I'll bet. Eat it boys. That's what you're

there for.
And AIG, you can bite the big one too.

[stillcool]

3. frigging loansharks....

it's not like they don't know the vig, and have it amply covered. Bail-outs from congress are always nice to fluff up the cushion.