"Insurers Should Consider Climate Risk More: Industry Group"

"Insurers should pay more heed to climate risk in their investment strategies to plug an annual $100 billion 'protection gap' of uninsured losses from natural catastrophes, a network of 29 global insurance players said in a report on Wednesday.

The report by the network ClimateWise, which includes the Lloyd's of London insurance market, Swiss Re and broker Aon Group, said introducing a rating system to measure financial assets' resilience to climate change could help protect insurers' investment arms from losses from weather-related catastrophes.

Analysis by ClimateWise member Swiss Re found losses from natural catastrophes such as windstorms and floods have increased five-fold since the 1980s to around $170 billion today, with the average annual protection gap - the gap between insured and uninsured losses - widening from $23 billion to $100 billion."

Ritvik Carvalho reports for Reuters December 7, 2016.