We are just a couple weeks away from 2020, but the insurance industry is still tallying up losses from 2018 natural disasters. In total, 394 individual weather disasters occurred across the globe in 2018, costing economies an estimated $215 billion, says the "Weather, Climate & Catastrophe Insight" report from Aon Benfield, making it the fourth costliest year on record. Insured losses reached $89 billion, with 64% of losses incurred in the U.S. alone. The Insurance Institute of Information (I.I.I) recently compiled a list of the costliest natural disasters from 2018 with updated insured loss data from Aon. A few billion-dollar storms, including hurricanes and typhoons, top the list, with the majority of events having impacted the U.S. and Japan. For its list, the I.I.I. only considered natural disasters that caused "at least $25 million in insured losses, or 10 deaths, or 50 people injured, or 2,000 filed claims or homes and structures damaged" as of Sep. 13, 2019. Additionally, the I.I.I included National Flood Insurance Program losses in its calculations for U.S. hurricane losses. Scroll through the slideshow above to uncover the top 10 costliest global natural disasters of 2018 based on insured losses, according to the I.I.I. Related: |

   

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Heather A. Turner

Heather A. Turner is the managing editor of ALM's NU Property & Casualty Group. She can be reached at [email protected].