Wildfires, Storms Fuel 2025 Insured Losses of $108 Billion: Munich Re Report

That compared with an inflation-adjusted $147 billion in 2024, the German reinsurer said, as the U.S. mainland avoided hurricanes for the first time in 10 years.

Munich Re’s total estimate for last year sightly exceeds Swiss Re’s of $107 billion, which it published in December.

Damage from floods, wildfires and severe storms was the main contributor to insured losses, accounting for $98 billion.

This exceeded an inflation-adjusted average for the past 10 years of $60 billion, Munich Re added.

“The year got off to a rough start, with very high losses caused by the wildfires in Los Angeles,” said Thomas Blunck, a member of Munich Re’s management board.

“Sheer luck spared the United States from hurricane landfalls in 2025. But the country is still number one in loss statistics,” Blunck added.

The costliest insured disaster of 2025 was the Los Angeles wildfires, Munich Re said, followed by days-long thunderstorms in central and southern U.S. states in March.

“A warming world makes extreme weather disasters more likely,” said Tobias Grimm, Munich Re’s chief climate scientist.

The global mean temperature between 2015 and 2024 was 1.24 to 1.28°C warmer than pre-industrial levels, making it the warmest decade on record, the European Environment Agency said in a report released in June last year.

Total losses from natural catastrophes, including those not covered by insurance, were lower than the 10-year average at $224 billion in 2025, and down from $368 billion in 2024.

An earthquake of 7.7 magnitude in Myanmar in March, where only a small share was insured, was the second most expensive disaster by overall losses of 2025, Munich Re said.

(Reporting by Christina Amann, writing by Linda Pasquini, editing by Alexander Smith)

Photograph: Damage from Hurricane Melissa, in Black River, Jamaica; photo credit: Ricardo Makyn/AFP/Getty Images