Economic losses and fatalities from weather- and climate-related extremes

Since 2012, the EEA has reported annually on economic and insured losses, along with fatalities from weather- and climate-related extremes across European countries. Data on economic losses and fatalities are presented annually as an EEA indicator, with underlying data available through Climate-ADAPT.

This briefing provides new insights in the six Western Balkan countries and the widening insurance protection gap (i.e. the share of non-insured economic losses in total losses, used as a proxy of how exposed individuals, businesses, or governments are to financial shocks due weather- and climate-related extreme events, stemming from insufficient or absent insurance coverage). Its analysis is informed by the Catastrophe Database (CATDAT) dataset (Risklayer GmbH). CATDAT covers the 38 members of Eionet (32 EEA member countries and six cooperating Western Balkan countries) and includes data accounting for the years between 1980 and 2023. The data contain information on geophysical, hydrological, meteorological and climatological events in these countries. They detail the date of occurrence, country, type of event, economic and insured losses, and the number of fatalities. See Box 1 for a more detailed description.

Economic losses in EEA-38 countries

Figure 1a suggests the country with the highest total economic losses between 1980 and 2023 is Germany, with EUR 180 billion. This is followed by Italy (EUR 135 billion), France (EUR 130 billion), Spain (EUR 97 billion) and Poland (EUR 20 billion). Taking only losses for this century (i.e. since 2001), the same four countries (Germany, Italy, France and Spain) record the highest numbers. However, the share compared to the total time series (1980-2023) differs significantly: Germany leads the way with over 85% of its losses recorded in this century, whereas Spain recorded 45%. For 21st century losses, these four countries are followed by a group of six with very similar total losses of between EUR 12 and 15 billion (Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Portugal, Romania and Slovenia). Countries with lower total losses are Kosovo (EUR 119 million), Liechtenstein (EUR 21 million), Montenegro (EUR 25 million), Iceland (EUR 26 million) and Malta (EUR 52 million).

Climate change impacts poorer countries more severely than richer ones (Mendelsohn et al., 2006; Tol, 2009). Large economic losses in richer, more economically-developed countries might have less impact than smaller losses in poorer, less-developed ones. For richer countries, these losses may require a smaller share of their public budgets or they might be better equipped to recover from them. The European Central Bank (ECB) reports that while Member States’ fiscal budgets are not heavily impacted by weather extremes, particularly severe events were found to have disproportionately larger impacts in newer Members with relatively smaller economies (Avgousti et al., 2023). Looking exclusively at total losses would be reductive and risk giving an incomplete representation of the true impact of weather and climate hazards across Europe.

The analyses presented below rescale losses by countries’ surface area and population, moving beyond the simple quantification of total economic losses. They aim to provide a more detailed representation of how often and to what extent weather- and climate-related extremes occur. It is also important to examine values that directly control for a measure of economic development, such as GDP. However, this additional measure was not applied to the economic losses’ values in this briefing. Certain limitations exist with such an analysis. Data limitations make it difficult to obtain a consistent time series for all countries considered, especially Western Balkan ones. Results based only on the most recent year — as done with surface area and population — would be less relevant, since those elements are considerably more stable than GDP.  

Figure 1b shows the countries with the highest losses per square kilometre are Slovenia (EUR 866,467), Belgium (EUR 553,942), Germany (EUR 504,812), Switzerland (EUR 481,820) and Italy (EUR 446,788). Countries with the lowest losses are Iceland (EUR 249), Kosovo (EUR 1,713), Montenegro (EUR 1,786), Finland (EUR 7,041) and Estonia (EUR 7,489). A clear divide appears: western and central European countries present higher losses per square kilometre, while eastern and northern countries tend to have lower losses. Smaller countries don’t appear to have higher losses than larger ones, however. Several cases actually display an inverse relation: Germany, Italy, France and Spain all suffer high losses per square kilometre, while Iceland, Baltic countries and various Balkan nations have low losses.

Slovenia has the highest losses per capita (Figure 1c), amounting to EUR 8,733 between 1980 and 2023. This is followed by Luxembourg (EUR 2,694), Switzerland (EUR 2,685), Italy (EUR 2,330) and Spain (EUR 2,279). Countries with the lowest losses per capita are Kosovo (EUR 10), Montenegro (EUR 41), Iceland (EUR 87), Türkiye (EUR 104) and Malta (EUR 129). Losses per capita vary less than losses per square kilometre and several countries have relatively similar values. This is clear when comparing Figure 1c and Figure 1b. Nevertheless, a similar divide seems to exist between western and central European countries and eastern and northern ones — albeit less pronounced — with the former generally having higher per capita losses.

Most EEA-38 countries have high insurance protection gaps (Figure 1d). Seven countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia) have a protection gap of close to 100%, meaning no data on insured losses from weather- and climate-related extremes were available for the reference period. Six out of those seven countries correspond to the Western Balkan countries. This shows private insurance against climate-related natural hazards is almost non-existent in that region. Besides, 17 other countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Türkiye) present an insurance protection gap above 90%. Only two countries have more than 50% of their losses covered by insurance: Denmark, with an insurance protection gap of 38%, and Norway at 30%.

As already stated, these insurance protection gaps are derived from the CATDAT dataset used in this analysis. Some high protection gaps may result from incomplete reporting and a lack of insurance data. Iceland for instance has a 100% protection gap, despite it having a dedicated public pool to insure against natural hazards — the Natural Catastrophe Insurance of Iceland (Náttúruhamfaratryggingar Íslands, NTI) — as well as mandatory coverage for all private property and public infrastructure (Ceolotto et al., 2024). Similarly, France and Spain have well-established national insurance systems revolving around public-private partnerships (Caisse Centrale de Réassurance, CCR and Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros, CCS, respectively). These have historically been characterised by high coverage against natural hazards. Indeed, recent estimates by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) show that France, Iceland and Spain have high insurance penetration rates (i.e. the ratio of insurance premiums underwritten in a particular year to the GDP, often used as a proxy for the availability of risk protection in a given market) for wildfire, wind and flood (coastal and inland) coverage (Ceolotto et al., 2024).

Multiple factors may account for the disparities in insurance protection gaps. Firstly, the dataset used for the analysis: data providers record events and losses differently, hence their datasets might not have the same number of events nor the same loss values for a given event. Secondly, the insurance protection gap reported above accounts for all years in the 1980-2023 period. Yet estimates from EIOPA typically report the value for the most recent year.

Figure 1. Economic losses and insurance protection gap in the period 1980-2023

Economic losses over time

Event types are distributed more or less evenly across EU-27 countries, with a slightly higher prevalence of hydrological events accounting for total losses (Figure 2a). Hydrological events and heatwaves also cause a larger share of uninsured relative to insured losses, compared to other hazard types. For members of the EEA-32 but not EU-27, most losses come from meteorological and hydrological events, while climatological events only account for a very small share — almost entirely related to heatwaves (Figure 2b). Similarly to EU-27 countries, hydrological events tend to dominate total and uninsured losses (in absolute terms) compared to other event types. However, in Western Balkan countries, heatwaves caused the majority of losses, followed by hydrological events (Figure 2c). As mentioned previously, there are no records of insured losses for the 1980-2023 period in these countries.

For the EU-27 (Figure 2a), the moving average of insured losses slightly increases over time, from EUR 2.5 billion in 2009 (the 30-year average of 1980-2009) to EUR 4 billion in 2023 (the 30-year average of 1994-2023). However, the moving average of total losses shows a sharper upwards trend, from EUR 13 billion in 2009 to EUR 20 billion in 2023, with a particularly steep rise after 2020.

The distance between the two lines represents the insurance protection gap. The insurance protection gap has been present in all years of analysis (as well as for all types of events). It has also been exceeding, sometimes considerably, 50% of total economic losses for several years. The widening distance over time suggests the insurance protection gap has been increasing in EU Member States between 1980 and 2023. For the five countries in the EEA-32 but not EU-27 (Figure 2b), the 30-year moving averages of both total and insured losses are relatively flat. The moving average for total losses has dropped and the distance between the two lines has shrunk since around 2017. This means the insurance protection gap temporarily closed, but has been widening again since 2020.

For Western Balkan countries (Figure 2c), as already mentioned, there is no record of insured losses, hence the moving average of insured losses is constant at zero. Conversely, the 30-year moving average for total losses has increased consistently, implying a growing insurance protection gap.

Overall, in the EEA-38 member and cooperating countries, the moving average of insured losses has risen from EUR 2.7 billion in 2009 (30-year average of 1980-2009) to EUR 4.2 billion in 2023, for a total increase of around EUR 1.5 billion (30-year average of 1994-2023). The rise has been driven mostly by EU Member States. However, the moving average of total losses rose by almost EUR 8 billion over the same period, from EUR 13.8 billion in 2009 to EUR 21.5 billion in 2023.

Figure 2. Total and insured losses by year from weather- and climate-related events

Fatalities

Figure 3 displays the total number of fatalities for the entire analysis period, divided between the four event categories. Fatality counts may differ for various hazards. For most hazards (e.g. in the case of floods, storms or wildfires) fatalities are clearly identifiable. Data about them are collected across Europe through accurate procedures. On the other hand, fatalities from heatwaves are often not directly identifiable and are calculated through statistical estimations. This somewhat limits the comparability of fatalities caused by heatwaves, both with other hazards as well as across countries. The results, therefore, should be interpreted with caution.

Various country groups present considerably different values in terms of the human toll of climate- and weather-related hazards. Southern Europe and western Europe suffered the highest number of fatalities overall (72,063 and 166,866, respectively). In central-eastern Europe, northern Europe and the Western Balkan countries, significantly less people died (5,974, 897 and 576, respectively). Given that western Europe and southern Europe consist of a greater number of larger and more populous countries, more fatalities are to be expected. For reference, countries in western Europe and southern Europe had an aggregate average population of around 195 and 186 million people, respectively, between 1980 and 2023. On the other hand, central-eastern Europe had around 93 million people, northern Europe 36 million and the Western Balkan countries 19 million.

Still, the differences are sizeable. Southern Europe and western Europe suffered between 80 and 290 times the number of fatalities as northern Europe and the Western Balkan countries, though the aggregate average populations are only between five and 10 times larger. Compared to  central-eastern European countries, the number of people who died in southern Europe and western Europe is roughly between 12 to 28 times as large, against total average populations which are around twice the size.

For each of the five country groups, the figure also shows how fatalities are divided between events. In western Europe, heatwaves killed the most people (162,928). This contrasts with economic losses, for which they typically account for a lower share (compare Figures 2a and 2b). Climatological events are also the main contributors to fatalities for countries in northern Europe and central-eastern Europe. However, while in the former most fatalities were still due to heatwaves (536 out of 897), other climatological events such as wildfires, droughts or cold spells led to most in the latter (3,085 out of 5,974). In northern Europe, meteorological events caused the second highest number of fatalities (140), with fewer due to hydrological events (47). In central-eastern Europe, on the other hand, hydrological events and heatwaves killed a similar amount of people (1,153 and 1,130 respectively), followed by meteorological events (606). In southern European countries, heatwaves caused the most fatalities (66,567), with other events accounting for a marginal fraction (5,496 out of 72,063). Finally, hydrological events caused the most fatalities in the six Western Balkan countries (326), followed by climatological events (225), while meteorological events amounted for relatively few (25).

Figure 3. Total fatalities by event type for different country groups

Figure 4 explores the evolution of fatalities per decade in the five country groups. As the last decade from 2020 to 2023 only includes four years, these fatalities would risk being overshadowed by the others. To ensure a more even and comparable representation, the number of fatalities in each decade was normalised by the number of years. It was divided by 10 in all decades from the 1980s to the 2010s and by four for the 2020s. This essentially corresponds to the average number of fatalities per year in each decade.  

In the 2010s, most people in northern Europe died due to heatwaves. In western Europe, the vast majority of fatalities happen after the year 2000. The highest average number of fatalities per year occurred in the last decade, followed by the 2000s. In absolute terms, almost the same number of people died between 2020 and 2023 as in the 2010-2019 period. Across all decades, heatwave events caused most fatalities.

The 2000s saw the highest absolute number of fatalities. Most fatalities in central-eastern Europe occurred in this decade. Other climatological events such as wildfires, cold spells, frost or droughts were responsible for most fatalities in these countries. In southern Europe, the highest average of fatalities per year happened in the 2000-2009 and 2020-2023 periods. This is mostly attributable to major heatwaves in 2003 and 2022. Finally, in the Western Balkan countries, most fatalities (both total and yearly average) happened in the 1980s, followed by the 2010s. Hydrological events killed the most people in these periods, with climatological events (mostly often not heatwaves) accounting for the remaining share.

Figure 4. Fatalities by event type for different country groups per decade

Future projections and tools for adaptation

The intensity and frequency of various extreme climate and weather-related events (climate extremes) have increased in some European regions and are projected to continue rising with further global warming (IPCC, 2022). Southern Europe is experiencing more frequent and severe heatwaves, droughts and wildfires, while central and eastern Europe are experiencing higher risks of heavy rainfall and flooding. Coastal regions face growing threats from sea-level rise and storm surges. These trends were confirmed by the European Climate Risk Assessment (EUCRA), which identified 36 major climate risks facing Europe (EEA, 2024). EUCRA grouped these risks into several clusters — ecosystems, food, health, infrastructure, and economy and finance — and evaluated policy priorities to mitigate them. It found more than half of these risks require more action now by policymakers to prevent critical or catastrophic impacts in Europe, with several posing particularly acute threats to regions such as southern Europe and the EU's outermost areas.

These trends are expected to lead to increasing economic losses in Europe, with consequences to the level of insurance coverage in countries and how affordable insurance will be . One recent study projected total economic losses from climate- and weather-related events to double by 2050 and triple by 2100 (Gagliardi et al., 2022). Some authors have investigated the repercussions on insurance systems, finding that insurance penetration is expected to decline due to lower affordability, especially in those systems with risk-based premiums (Hudson, 2018; Tesselaar et al., 2020a, 2020b). The increase in economic losses, however, might be driven also by future socio-economic development such as building in flood-prone areas rather than climate change (Hudson, 2018).

The EEA’s commitment to periodically analysing damage and losses from climate extremes is in line with the EU’s endorsement of the United Nations (UN) Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 and its targets to reduce the economic and human impacts of climate-related hazards. The indicator on economic damage and losses from climate extremes is also referenced to supports the assessment of progress toward several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly those related to poverty reduction, sustainable cities, and climate action.

In this context, tools enabling accurate monitoring and evaluation, or helping Europe adapt to what’s coming, are key. For example, the EEA runs a comprehensive programme dedicated to monitoring and evaluating progress on climate change adaptation across Europe. This includes tracking policy developments, implementation efforts and the effectiveness of adaptation measures across various geographic and thematic levels. To assist Member State authorities in their adaptation efforts, the EEA has developed a range of platforms and tools, including Climate-ADAPT, the European Climate and Health Observatory and a classification system for adaptation actions known as the Key Types of Measures (KTMs).

On Climate-ADAPT, the EEA provides adaptation options for using insurance as a means for climate risk management and other aspects of dealing with climate losses and fatalities. Through its Case study explorer, Climate-ADAPT also provides inspiring examples of adaptation implementation, including subsided drought insurance in Austria and private-public partnership on SME insurance in Italy. These case studies show that public-private partnerships support better financial planning as a mechanism to enhance climate resilience and reduce vulnerability over time. By reducing individual incentives to avoid risk, insurance can encourage continued development in high-risk areas or reinforce sustainable land-use practices. By assessing climate risks at the enterprise and district level in parallel, public-private partnership can improve the interaction between private sector stakeholders, the insurance sector and local adaptation authorities. Ultimately this can lead to  better climate adaptation strategies and spatial planning.

Adapting and investing in increased resilience is not only important to limit and reduce economic losses and fatalities from weather- and climate-related extreme events in the future. Adaptation measures come at a cost. Yet they can also stimulate economic growth and cause ancillary impacts, including social and environmental benefits — particularly through nature-based solutions. These benefits would be valuable even if certain impacts from climate change don’t happen.

The Climate Resilience Dialogue

The European Commission (EC) launched the Climate Resilience Dialogue (2022). This initiative is designed to address the widening insurance protection gap in Europe — the growing disparity between total economic losses from climate-related events and the share that is insured. This forum brought together public authorities, insurers and other stakeholders to identify barriers — such as limited affordability, low risk awareness and gaps in risk data — and to explore collaborative solutions. The outcomes underscored a need for public-private partnerships, innovative risk reduction strategies and closer alignment between climate resilience and insurance systems. For example, European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) and the ECB published a joint paper on the possible role of European solutions in reducing the impact from weather- and climate-related extremes. The paper by EIOPA and ECB highlighted two key elements: a public-private EU reinsurance scheme to increase the insurance coverage for these kind of perils and an EU fund for public disaster financing. The latter would reinforce public disaster risk management in Member States in addition to the EU Solidarity Fund (EUSF) and the 2024 RESTORE initiative.

EIOPA explores how insurance can play a proactive role in promoting risk prevention, preparedness and recovery, by assessing the insurer’s exposure to climate-related risks and informing the development of risk based supervisory frameworks. Without adaptation, the EU risks escalating costs and irreversible damage to ecosystems, infrastructure and human health. According to the European Parliament (EP), this not only requires a strengthening of the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism but also of the EUSF to be ‘commensurate to the increasing number and severity of natural disasters in Europe’.

In the long-term, the resolution calls for more investment in regional and local resilience. It demands that the EU promotes these aspects further across future policies.