Extreme heat escapes insurance losses despite mounting physical climate risk
[...]
Severe and extreme heatwaves have claimed more lives than any other natural hazard in Australia, according to the Australian Climate Service, which also records that extreme heat produces more deaths and hospital admissions each year than any other hazard. Coronial research covering July 2000 to June 2018 identified at least 354 heatwave deaths, with about half in Victoria and a quarter in South Australia, per Risk Frontiers . The Australian Climate Service estimates labour-productivity losses alone at $8.7 billion a year.
[...]
The overseas conditions supplied the immediate prompt. A record heat dome over the eastern half of the US was tied to at least 25 deaths and pushed readings past 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) in more than 20 states, The Business Standard reported, with active heat alerts covering more than 140 million people as of July 5. New Jersey linked 22 deaths across 10 counties to the temperatures, and authorities described conditions as “life-threatening.”
[...]
NRMA Insurance meteorologist Kathryn Turner linked the outlook to an intensifying El Niño and the loss of overnight cooling. On longer-term measures, she cited building changes: “Practical measures such as installing proper insulation, increased external shading, upgraded window glazing, improved natural ventilation, and investing in solar panels and battery storage can help properties stay cooler, and ease pressure on infrastructure.”
[...]
For underwriters and actuaries, the through-line is that rising heat exposure paired with a persistent preparation gap bears on assumptions well beyond property lines – from health and life morbidity to business interruption triggered by grid and supply-chain failure. The mismatch across cohorts, with the least-exposed group most prepared and heavily exposed younger and South Australian households least ready, is also a distribution and product-design signal for where mitigation incentives and resilience education are directed.