Francesco Comola, Bernhard Märtl, Hilary Paul, Christian Bruns, Klaus Sapelza
{"title":"Increase in insurance losses caused by North Atlantic hurricanes in a warmer climate","authors":"Francesco Comola, Bernhard Märtl, Hilary Paul, Christian Bruns, Klaus Sapelza","doi":"10.1038/s43247-024-01824-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"North Atlantic hurricanes are a major driver of property losses in the United States and a critical peril for the reinsurance industry globally. We leverage insurance loss data and stochastic modeling to investigate the impacts of projected changes in hurricane climatology on the insurance industry, for +2 °C and +4 °C warming scenarios. We find that, relative to the historical baseline 1950-2022, expected changes in wind speed and rainfall may increase hurricane losses by 5% −15% (+2 °C) and 10% − 30% (+4 °C), with greater impacts at lower return periods than in the tail. The historical 100-year loss event may therefore be exceeded on average every 80 years (+2 °C) and 70 years (+4 °C). The expected changes in average annual loss are projected to be 10% (+2 °C) and 15% (+4 °C), with the largest relative increase attributable to precipitation-induced losses. Under the extreme SSP5-8.5 scenario, the expected loss inflation due to climate change is thus on the order of 0.5% per annum. Expected changes in wind speed and rainfall associated with North Atlantic hurricanes could increase property insurance losses by 10% for a scenario of 2 degrees of warming, with greater impacts on the more frequent events, suggests an analysis of historical data with stochastic modelling.","PeriodicalId":10530,"journal":{"name":"Communications Earth & Environment","volume":" ","pages":"1-8"},"PeriodicalIF":8.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01824-7.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Communications Earth & Environment","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01824-7","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
North Atlantic hurricanes are a major driver of property losses in the United States and a critical peril for the reinsurance industry globally. We leverage insurance loss data and stochastic modeling to investigate the impacts of projected changes in hurricane climatology on the insurance industry, for +2 °C and +4 °C warming scenarios. We find that, relative to the historical baseline 1950-2022, expected changes in wind speed and rainfall may increase hurricane losses by 5% −15% (+2 °C) and 10% − 30% (+4 °C), with greater impacts at lower return periods than in the tail. The historical 100-year loss event may therefore be exceeded on average every 80 years (+2 °C) and 70 years (+4 °C). The expected changes in average annual loss are projected to be 10% (+2 °C) and 15% (+4 °C), with the largest relative increase attributable to precipitation-induced losses. Under the extreme SSP5-8.5 scenario, the expected loss inflation due to climate change is thus on the order of 0.5% per annum. Expected changes in wind speed and rainfall associated with North Atlantic hurricanes could increase property insurance losses by 10% for a scenario of 2 degrees of warming, with greater impacts on the more frequent events, suggests an analysis of historical data with stochastic modelling.
期刊介绍:
Communications Earth & Environment is an open access journal from Nature Portfolio publishing high-quality research, reviews and commentary in all areas of the Earth, environmental and planetary sciences. Research papers published by the journal represent significant advances that bring new insight to a specialized area in Earth science, planetary science or environmental science.
Communications Earth & Environment has a 2-year impact factor of 7.9 (2022 Journal Citation Reports®). Articles published in the journal in 2022 were downloaded 1,412,858 times. Median time from submission to the first editorial decision is 8 days.