The damage cost insurers $31 billion, a 51 percent increase from last year.
The leading causes of the losses were earthquakes in Japan, thunderstorms throughout much of the United States and Europe, and the massive wildfires in Canada.
|Natural catastrophes comprised $68B of losses
Of the $71 billion in economic losses, natural catastrophes comprised $68 billion of the losses, an increase of $22 billion over 2015. Thunderstorms were the leading cause of the losses in the United States because of three separate weather events involving massive hail damage and high winds, which caused over $7 billion in losses. An April storm in Texas resulted in $3.1 billion in insured losses primarily because of hail damage. Manmade insured disasters accounted for $3 billion in covered losses, $2 billion lower than those in 2015.
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