Climate change increased the number of hurricanes, tornadoes and
other weather-related catastrophes by nearly five times in North
America during the past 30 years, according to research
published Wednesday by the world's largest reinsurer, Munich Re.
The German reinsurer said that "nowhere in the world is the
rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North
America." Insurance companies and reinsurers, which provide
property coverage to insurers, have paid out between $10.4
billion and $110.8 billion annually to cover natural disasters
worldwide between 2000 and 2009, according to the Insurance
Information Institute, a trade group. Separately, I wrote
recently about the rising liability costs to insurers to pay
lawyers in defending against climate-change related lawsuits, of
which there have been more than 500 since 1989, according to a
tally by a Columbia University law professor. Between 1980 and
2011, the total insured property cost of weather-related
catastrophes in the U.S. was $510 billi