Underinsurance of property risks: closing the gap
This report provides an estimate of global property underinsurance, not only in terms of historical natural catastrophe events, but also in terms of forward-looking probabilistic models of natural catastrophe exposures and a general benchmarking of the wider demand for all property covers in relation to well-insured countries. This analysis identifies the gaps by country and by peril, and disentangles the root causes for the gap in each segment.
According to this study, much of the underinsurance is due to global natural catastrophe risk, which has risen steadily over the past 40 years. In the last 10 years, cumulative total damage to global property as a result of natural disaster events was USD 1.8 trillion, and about 30% of those losses were insured. In other words, the total shortfall in insurance cover – the protection gap – was USD 1.3 trillion.