Five consecutive quarters of below-average catastrophe losses have pushed property reinsurance rates down 16% at the July 2026 midyear renewal. Gallagher Re's H1 2026 Natural Catastrophe and Climate Report puts global insured losses from natural catastrophes at US$46 billion for the first six months of 2026. That total is the lowest H1 figure since 2018 and sits 28% below the 10-year average of US$64 billion.
The streak is already shaping pricing conditions. A JP Morgan report published last week confirmed that insured catastrophe losses came in below US$10 billion for the fifth consecutive quarter in Q2 2026, with total Q2 losses estimated at approximately US$15 billion. JP Morgan said a fifth consecutive below-average quarter would provide no support for a pricing recovery.
Reinsurance pricing has responded accordingly. The decline accelerated from 12% at the January 1 renewal, according to the Guy Carpenter global property catastrophe rate-on-line index
Economic losses for the period were estimated at US$142 billion, 10% below the decadal average. Across H1, $30 billion economic loss events were recorded globally against a 10-year average of 33. Only 11 events generated insured losses exceeding US$1 billion, compared with a 10-year average of 16.
Severe convective storms remained the dominant insurance peril in North America. The peril generated approximately US$26 billion of insured losses in the first half of the year, roughly 56% of the global insured total.
El Niño conditions emerged officially in June. Forecasters now assign a 97.4% probability that 2026 will rank among the five warmest years ever recorded, with exceptionally warm global ocean temperatures compounding those expectations.
The climate phase is generally associated with reduced Atlantic hurricane frequency. Yet as MS Amlin warned last month, a quieter season on paper does not remove landfall risk. The broker's own data showed no US hurricanes made landfall in 2025, and Hurricane Melissa still caused an estimated US$8.8 billion in economic damage after striking Jamaica.
Steve Bowen, chief science officer at Gallagher Re, said the emergence of El Niño "may not bring record-breaking losses, but the societal implications are considerable." He added that ongoing atmospheric and oceanic warming "will only further influence how risk develops across different regions of the world."
Europe presented one of H1's more instructive signals, but not through property destruction. A prolonged heatwave during May and June pushed multiple countries to all-time temperature records, yet the event generated limited insured losses in conventional property terms.
Bowen described the episode as "another reminder that weather extremes can cause great humanitarian risk and impact without causing widespread physical damage." He noted that the property sector is monitoring how heat drives physical damage through foundation degradation and stresses tied to commercial business interruption.
The region is warming at roughly twice the global average rate. That trajectory is prompting insurers to reassess how heat-related exposures feed into both physical damage and liability claims lines.
Beyond Europe, the period included a destructive earthquake sequence in Venezuela, drought concerns across parts of North and South America, and severe flooding in China and Canada.
Bowen said the lower headline figures should not obscure broader risk signals. "We are continuing to observe meaningful weather signals and shifts in longer-term climate patterns that are bringing greater impact to the world," he said. Resilience depends on understanding "not only how much risk exists, but where risk profiles may be evolving," he said.
