Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptationand Vulnerability  Other
reports in this collection  3.7. Insurance and Other Financial
Services  The costs of ordinary and extreme weather events have
increased rapidly in recent decades. Global economic losses from
catastrophic events increased 10.3-fold from 3.9 billion US$
yr-1 in the 1950s to 40 billion US$ yr-1 in the 1990s (all in
1999US$, unadjusted for purchasing power parity), with
approximately one-quarter of the losses occurring in developing
countries. The insured portion of these losses rose from a
negligible level to 9.2 billion US$ yr-1 during the same period.
Total costs are a factor of two larger when losses from smaller,
non-catastrophic weather-related events are included. As a
measure of increasing insurance industry vulnerability, the
ratio of global property/casual insurance premiums to weather
related losses fell by a factor of three between 1985 and 1999.
[4.6]  The costs of weather events have risen rapidly despite
significant and increasing ef