Gallagher Re counts six quarters without a $10bn-plus insured catastrophe

Gallagher Re counts six consecutive quarters without a natural catastrophe causing more than $10bn of insured losses. In its Natural Catastrophe and Climate Report: Q3 2026, published this week, the broker calls the streak the longest in decades. Global insured losses for the first nine months of 2026 came to about $92bn.

The $92bn total is 29% below the 2016–2025 average for the period and the lowest January-to-September loss total since 2019. Event counts were close to normal: Gallagher Re counted 24 billion-dollar insured events through September, in line with the 10-year average. Thirteen exceeded $2bn; none reached $10bn.

Steve Bowen, Gallagher Re's chief science officer, drew the distinction in a statement: "catastrophe activity and catastrophe losses are not necessarily the same thing." Disasters struck in 2026, he said, but few hit places or unfolded in ways that produced large insured losses.

The costliest insured event of the year so far was a severe weather outbreak across the central US from April 22 to May 1, at about $6bn. Three of the five costliest insured events were in North America.

Total economic losses reached about $242bn, the lowest nine-month figure since 2015; about 62% of that was uninsured. Earthquakes in Venezuela and Colombia were the two costliest disasters, causing more than $38bn of combined damage but about $3bn of insured losses. The US accounted for about 62% of insured losses.

Cat bond triggers reference insured loss, so a year of heavy economic damage and light insured losses means few bonds attach and the capital base remains intact.

Gallagher Re's composite of major reinsurers reported a 19.9% return on equity and a record-low 85.8% combined ratio in the first half.

Dedicated reinsurance capital rose to a record of about $688bn. Six quarters without a peak-loss event, on the broker's numbers, puts that capacity into January 1 renewals with no recent losses to absorb.

US commercial property rates fell 10% in the third quarter after a 13% decline in the second, according to Marsh's Global Insurance Market Index, released October 21. Marsh said a benign US hurricane season was "contributing to favorable underwriting results for insurers."

August's Midwest derecho did not change the market's direction; brokers said at the time that one storm on its own was unlikely to turn the property market. A Toronto storm in early September was sized small enough to leave ILS capital unmoved, as this publication reported.

Gallagher Re still expects full-year insured losses to exceed $100bn. Adjusted for inflation, 2026 would be the 10th consecutive year above that level, a floor that has held even as the count of $10bn-plus events thinned: five since 2022, against 13 between 2017 and 2021.