According to calculations by Munich Re, hurricanes, severe thunderstorms, floods, and wildfires caused damages totaling $224 billion last year, with $108 billion covered by insurers. This marks a significant decrease compared to 2024, when damages reached $368 billion, of which $147 billion were insured, as reported by the world's largest reinsurer on Tuesday.
However, this is no cause for complacency. "In 2025, the USA was simply lucky that hurricanes spared it," said Munich Re board member Thomas Blunck. For the first time in ten years, the US mainland was not struck by a major hurricane, even though three extremely powerful Category 5 hurricanes formed in the tropical North Atlantic. Nonetheless, secondary natural events such as floods, wildfires, and severe thunderstorms caused more damage than ever before.
"The planet has a fever," said Tobias Grimm, the company's chief climatologist, to Reuters news agency. "With higher temperatures, we more frequently see destructive weather that brings extreme events." This is driving up the "background noise." Natural events such as floods, thunderstorms, and wildfires caused damages amounting to $166 billion, of which around $98 billion were insured. Thus, the damages and insured losses were approximately $30 billion above the ten-year average. Never before have these hazards caused higher insured losses. "This increase clearly shows the influence of climate change," said Grimm. "More heat in the air produces these destructive weather conditions."
WILDFIRES IN LOS ANGELES DOMINATE DAMAGE STATISTICS
By far the most costly natural disaster of the past year was the wildfires in Los Angeles in January, which alone accounted for $53 billion. Munich Re described it as the most expensive wildfire catastrophe of all time. A dangerous combination of drought and strong winter winds created ideal wildfire conditions. The fires destroyed an area almost as large as the US capital, Washington, and claimed 30 lives. The second most costly disaster was a series of severe thunderstorms with tornadoes that caused devastation in the central and southern United States in March.
For the first time in ten years, however, no major hurricanes made landfall in the US, which helped to keep insurance costs down. While three Category 5 hurricanes formed in the tropical North Atlantic—more than in any year since 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated the New Orleans area and caused record damages—special meteorological conditions, such as an unusually far east Azores-Bermuda High, prevented the powerful storms from crossing into the US. One of the 2025 hurricanes swept over Jamaica and Cuba, destroying roads and houses and wiping out crops. Around 100 people lost their lives.
(Reporting by Christina Amann. Edited by Olaf Brenner. For inquiries, please contact our editorial team at Berlin.Newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and economy) or Frankfurt.Newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets)
