In 2023, climate disasters in France cost insurers 6.5 billion euros, Florence Lustman, president of France Assureurs, announced to Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday March 27.

Faced with the acceleration of these devastating events, we are experiencing a clear “change of scale”, with 2023 being “the third most serious year in terms of climate disasters, after 1999 and 2022,” said Ms. Lustman. The year 1999, marked by storms Lothar and Martin, remains the worst so far, with an estimated cost of 13.8 billion euros in constant euros, followed by 2022, whose climatic events cost 10 billion euros. euros to insurers.

We are crossing “successive levels in the cost of climate risk”, continues the president of France Assureurs, the main employers’ organization of insurance companies. During the years 2000 to 2008 “we were on average 2.7 billion euros per year”. Then, between 2010 and 2019, “we increased to 3.7 billion. And if I take the average over the last four years, including 2022 and 2023, I am at 6 billion,” added Ms. Lustman to AFP.

Fourteen floods throughout the year

There were many extreme phenomena in 2023, which is also the second hottest year in France, after 2022, including “15 windy phenomena, with winds of more than 150 km/h”, “14 floods , with each time more than 15 municipalities which were the subject of a natural disaster order”. Storms Ciaran and Domingos, which hit the North-West, caused 517,000 claims, at a cost of 1.6 billion euros, according to France Assureurs. The floods in the North at the end of 2023 caused 40,000 victims.

The former general manager of Pacifica, Thierry Langreney, was tasked by the government with a study on the insurability of climate risks, the publication of which is impatiently awaited by the insurance world. The government announced at the end of last year the increase in the additional premium for the natural disaster compensation scheme – known as Cat Nat – from 12% to 20% from 2025 for all policyholders.

With this guarantee, which concerns in particular floods or droughts, the State covers half of the costs, thus making it possible to reduce insurers’ bills by half. “This public-private partnership is intended to cover risks which would otherwise become uninsurable for insurers,” explains Ms. Lustman, who calls above all for “a change of scale in our prevention behaviors,” ahead of a disaster.