Weather, climate and catastrophe insight: 2021 annual report

This report highlights 2021 global natural hazards and helps quantify and qualify how topics such as climate change, socioeconomics, and other emerging issues are driving new and emerging types of risk. The data, statistics, and analytics are meant to aid interests in sectors such as insurance, government, academia, real estate, emergency management, and banking. Over the past year, the world has counted the costs of another round of major, expensive and disruptive natural disasters. These kinds of catastrophes are increasing in frequency and severity — impacting livelihoods, communities, and businesses across the globe. And many of them can be exacerbated by the effects of climate change.

The key learnings from the report include:

• Costs of climate change extend beyond physical damage
• Larger-scale events can amplify humanitarian aid needs
• Investment in infrastructure or other adaptation methods can reduce long-term costs
• Data and analytics will aid increasingly mandated climate-related regulatory disclosures