It does not always have to be a large natural catastophe: According to the reinsurer Munich Re, frequent storms are an increasing factor for damage. The United States was particularly affected.
Fires, storms, earthquakes and other natural disasters caused immense damage of $ 131 billion worldwide in the first half of 2025. According to analysis by the reinforcement, Munich Re, these were the second highest damage in the first half of the year since 1980 and considerably more than in long -term cut. Only in 2011 was the damage even higher in a first half of the year, then triggered by the devastating earthquake in Japan and the following tsunami.
The fire in California alone caused damage of around $ 53 billion in January. According to Munich Re, this was the most expensive fire disaster ever. Most human lives with 4,500 dead demanded the earthquake in Myanmar on March 28th.
70 percent of the damage in the USA
The geoscientists of the DAX group assume that weather-related natural disasters occur more frequently due to global warming than in earlier decades and are also more violent. “Increasing damage from weather disasters is the new normality,” said Tobias Grimm, the chief climatologist of the Munich Group. “The background noise becomes louder. It is not always the big disasters that cause high damage, also the many storms.”
According to analysis of the Munich, Europe got off comparatively lightly with total damage of around five billion. The United States was hit particularly hard. Apart from the forest fires in and around Los Angeles, numerous severe storms and tornados formed, so that the total damage in the United States ended up added to $ 92 billion, 70 percent of the global total.
Europe recently a little less affected
In this regard, North America is particularly at risk, the natural disaster damage there is almost traditionally higher there than in other parts of the world. “The largest tornado density is in the United States,” said Grimm. “Due to the location of the continent, very cold and very warm -humid air masses very often collide.” This contrast of the air masses is nowhere in this form worldwide.
Regardless of the comparatively low damage, the Munich re could not give a all -clear for Europe either, said Grimm. “It was lucky that there were no major weather disasters in the first six months.” Local storms went down – “but not like 2024 when Europe was born by many floods, especially Central Europe”.
Dangers by decline in the permafrost
A natural event also fell out of the framework in Europe: the rock and ice fall in the Swiss canton of Valais, which at the end of May almost buried the village of Blatten and destroyed 130 houses, an estimated total damage. “The alpine climate risks are known, but they have not been so much on the public radar,” emphasized Grimm.
According to Munich, 80 billion of the 131 billion euros in global total damage were insured. Both numbers were therefore significantly over the average values of the past decades. The Munich Re estimated the thirty-year average to $ 79 billion.
