- Global economy lost $357bn to natural disaster in 2023 – report
The Nigerian equities market at midweek sustained its bullish sentiment as investors bargain hunting drives market breadth upward by 2,092.88 points.
As a result, the market NGX All Share index rose further by 2.38 percent to close at 90,063.25 points, above the 87,970.37 basis points recorded in the previous session.
Hence the year-to-date gain of the NGX ASI rose to 20.45 percent, while the market capitalization gained N1.14 trillion to close at N49.28 trillion.
A total of 48 stocks recorded gains, a higher number than 35 losers. Specifically, stocks such as AIICO, GUINNESS, HONEY FLOUR, SUNO SASUR and WEMA BANK posted a significant share price appreciation of 10 percent respectively and emerged as the top gainers for the day.
On the other hand, RTBRISCOE, DANGSUGAR, NGXGROUP, REDSTAREX and STERLINGNG suffered losses of 10.00 percent, 9.95 percent, 9.84 percent, 9.47 percent and 9.09 percent, respectively.
Meanwhile, market activity showed further improvement with total deals, volume and value increasing by 17.77 percent, 19.25 percent and 2.08 percent to 17,471 trades, 1.29 billion units and N16.38 billion, respectively.
Across the sectors, performance remained relatively positive among the sub-sector gauges tracked, with the exception of the Banking sector which was the only laggard, thus declining by 3.26 percent. However, the Insurance, Consumer Goods, Oil/Gas and Industrial Goods indexes recorded gains of 3.63 percent, 1.92 percent, 0.45 percent and 8.76 percent, respectively.
At the close of the session’s trade, STERLINGNG was the most traded security in terms of volume with 106.14 million units worth N800.26 million, across 838 trades, while NB led in traded value at N2.02 billion.
Global economy lost $357bn to natural disaster in 2023 – report
The global economy lost an estimated $357 billion to natural disasters in 2023, of which approximately 34 percent, or $123 billion was covered by re/insurance, while an annual record of 34 individual billion-dollar insured loss events in the year.
This is according to the reinsurance broker’s 2023 Natural Catastrophe and Climate Report for 2023 by Gallagher Re, released on Wednesday.
The report also stated that 2023 was the fourth consecutive year in which global insured losses from natural catastrophes exceeded the $100 billion mark.
The dominant driver of losses in 2023 was the severe convective storm peril, which accounted for roughly 58 percent, or a record $71 billion of the global insured loss total, of which the U.S. accounted for $60 billion.
According to Gallagher Re, six of the top 10 most expensive insured events of the year were SCS events in the U.S.
Commenting on the report, Gallagher Re’s Chief Science Officer, Steve Bowen, said, “Peak’ perils are still anticipated to drive the highest individual event losses. However, the continued growth of damage from ‘non-peak/secondary’ perils, such as SCS, is changing the way we view and plan for natural catastrophe risk. It also increases the importance of analytics and catastrophe modelling to properly gauge how a combination of climate change-influenced event behaviour and socioeconomic parameters are leading to higher loss potentials.”
At $357 billion, the economic loss total surpassed $300 billion for the eighth consecutive year in 2023, and excluding losses from earthquakes and other non-atmospheric-driven events, the economic loss total fell to $301 billion and the insured loss total declined to $116 billion.
What is clear from the figures is that the protection gap (disparity between economic and insured losses) remains large across the globe.
On an economic basis, the February earthquake in Turkey and Syria was the costliest event of 2023 with losses of $46.2 billion.
However, just 13%, or $6.1 billion was covered by insurance. This event, alongside the Marrakech-Safi earthquake in Morocco, Typhoon Doksuri in China, and Hurricane Otis in Mexico, contributed to the 66% global protection gap in 2023.
“We continue to witness an increase in the severity and high-impact frequency of natural catastrophe events. These effects bring multifaceted and complex challenges to the (re)insurance industry, as the importance of blending today’s view of risk with the anticipated downstream implications of tomorrow grows more critical.
“While we continue to witness an expansion of insurance protection into vulnerable parts of the world, there remain considerable gaps in coverage that leave many developing countries highly exposed to catastrophe risk. The need for more guaranteed climate or natural catastrophe financing to mitigate or adapt to a more complex world of natural hazards becomes more critical by the day. The growth of private and public sector partnerships bringing new insurance options to underserved communities is a promising trend that needs to further accelerate,” he added.
Gallagher Re’s comprehensive report examines a record-setting year in which 66 individual billion-dollar economic loss events were recorded.
