The latest quarterly report issued by Gallagher Re provides a sober picture of the costs associated with a range of weather disasters experienced in the first half of 2025. The damage wrought by the 19 billion dollar events globally was $134 billion, with an above average 60% of the total being insured damages. Insured inflation-adjusted losses globally from weather-related disasters in 2025 were the highest on record for the first half of a year at $81 billion, a $6 billion increase on last year.
A total of 15 of the weather disasters, occurred in the United States with 92% of the global insured damages. A key element of such figures relates to the Los Angeles wildfires of January. Gallagher Re reports that the Palisades Fire caused $37 billion in economic damages, and the Eaton Fire added $28 billion. Previously, the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California, held the record for the costliest single fire worldwide at $20 billion (inflation-adjusted). The combined $65 billion cost of the 2025 California wildfires ranks it as the eighth-costliest weather disaster globally.
Source: Yale Climate Connections – costliest inflation-adjusted wildfires globally, according to EM-DAT, NOAA, and Gallagher Re (total economic damage, not just insured).
Of the 13 additional billion dollar weather disasters, all but one were related to Severe Convective Storms (SCS) with the costliest of being the Mid March event with $9.5 billion economic losses and $7.7 billion insured losses. In total, SCS events accounted for $42 billion worth of losses. The other notable event in the US was on-going drought conditions which at the half year mark had caused a total of $2.5 billion losses.
By comparison, the rest of the world experienced below average activity with notable events being Cyclone Alfred ($0.9 billion insured loss), Storm Eowyn ($0.8 billion insured loss) and an active stretch of rainstorms and hail in France during May and June.
