Agricultural insurance payments for inclement weather such as drought or floods have exceeded 800 million euros for the first time in 2022, which represents a record and a figure much higher than the less than 500 million euros that were disbursed on average at the beginning of the last decade.
These data appear collected in the Social Memory of the Insurance, presented today by the association of insurers Unespa in Madrid. If they beat all the records, it is due to the higher incidence of inclement weather, which has been increasing strongly in recent years and for which explosive storms and drought episodes are two of the most damaging factors.
“In recent years we are seeing how meteorological events are becoming more frequent and intense and affect increasingly larger geographical areas,” said Mirenchu ​​del Valle, president of Unespa, during the presentation. “The accident rate path has reached all-time highs in 2022,” she added.
The record of indemnities to the field occurred despite the fact that last year there was no storm among those with the highest accident rate for insurers in recent years. It did coincide, on the other hand, with a year of severe drought and with a trend towards an increase in extreme weather phenomena in the last five years.
The four most recent weather events costing insurers the most have all occurred in the last three years. The stormy Gloria, in January 2020 and at a cost of 305 million euros, remains at the top of the ranking, ahead of Filomena, whose impact at the beginning of 2021 was 160 million.
The agricultural sector, according to data from Agroseguro and the INE, has lost value in recent years, reaching just over 30,000 million euros, the lowest figure since 2015. Of this amount, 49% is covered against possible inclement weather , according to Unespa data.
“In recent years we have been observing an increase in the frequency and severity of weather-related claims,” ​​says Del Valle. Private insurers take charge of common weather damage, such as rain, winds of less than 120 kilometers per hour, snow or hail, while the Insurance Compensation Consortium assumes extraordinary phenomena.
Apart from indemnifications to the countryside, Unespa has also calculated the part of multi-risk insurance for homes, businesses or industries that is dedicated to covering meteorological accidents. Last year’s figure, with fewer explosive storms, was €545 million, up from a peak of €970 million in 2020.
These figures for multi-risk insurance for meteorological damage have skyrocketed in the last six years, reaching an average of more than 700 million euros. The main affected within this segment are households and neighboring communities, which were compensated with 383 million euros last year.
Multi-risk insurance currently pays around 70% of the compensation linked to climatic phenomena, compared to the 30% assumed by the extraordinary coverage of the Insurance Compensation Consortium.
The president of Unespa recalled that the terms Dana or explosive cyclogenesis were not used before 2009. “Now we all handle them with ease,” she lamented. She also advocated for the incorporation of mandatory insurance formulas in the face of new inclemencies.
Back in the countryside, in Spain there are 158 million head of cattle covered by agricultural insurance, of which the vast majority, 153 million, correspond to poultry. There are also 1.69 million insured cows, in addition to 721 pigs and 1.3 million sheep.
