This year was a "benign year" for catastrophe-related losses for insurers and cost property insurers worldwide only $15 billion according to preliminary Swiss Re estimates.

The Zurich-based firm said 2006 produced the third lowest level of catastrophe costs to insurers in the last 20 years.

Swiss Re said its data indicates natural and man-made catastrophes triggered total economic losses of around $40 billion.

The firm reported that earthquakes, cold spells, windstorms and shipping disasters still claimed an estimated 30,000 lives in 2006.

Swiss Re said in the report that after years of record losses, property insurers "appear to be getting off lightly in 2006."

This, Swiss Re officials said, "will allow [insurers] to replenish their risk capital, depleted by record payments for hurricane damage in 2005 and 2004."

Specifically, the report said, up to now, only three loss events in the billion-dollar range have made themselves felt: two tornados in the United States and a typhoon in Japan.

Regarding the fact that this year resulted in the third-lowest level of insurers' losses in the last 20 years, after 1997 and 1988, Swiss Re attributed this mainly to the "quiet" hurricane season in the United States and surrounding countries.

"Unlike in previous years, Europe has also been spared expensive catastrophes up to now; however, the time for winter storms (remember Lothar and Martin in 1999) and floods (for instance "Christmas floods" on the Lower Rhine in 1993) is by no means over," the report said.

The report noted that, "no major industrialized regions have been hit by earthquakes, and very expensive man-made disasters--such as aircraft crashes or large-scale fires--have been conspicuous by their absence."

According to the Swiss Re data, earthquakes caused the most fatalities, citing an earthquake May 27 almost completely wiped out the city of Bantul on the Indonesian island of Java.

Another earthquake in Indonesia, on July 17, triggered a tsunami, with the dual event together claiming 800 victims.

Windstorms and floods also claimed more than 11,500 lives in 2006.

Special Reports /

Swiss Re: 2006 P-C Sector Loss Was $15 Billion

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