The world and the insurance industry must prepare for an increase in climate disasters and their consequences.
Asked about Europe 1 this Saturday, the CEO of Axa, Jacques de Peretti, explained that his teams were monitoring "
very closely
" the climatic disasters, the consequences of which are increasing.
Read also: Reinsurers resist natural disasters
"
We see that the bill for climate claims is doubling every twenty years,
" he said.
It has gone from $ 1.2 billion per year in the 1980s to $ 3.2 billion today.
It should spend "
beyond six billion in twenty, twenty-five years,
" noted the insurer.
If the fire remains "
the main
historical
scourge
" of the insured, it is "
in the process of being doubled by natural events which represent, in the years that we are living, a greater weight
".
Insurance must adapt to this development, advised the CEO of Axa: if it is “
not at all planned to increase
risk
premiums
”, “
prevention is necessary
”.
"
It is clear that we must encourage everything that revolves around cleaning up waterways, limiting building permits in flood-prone areas,
" Jacques de Peretti said, in order to prevent disasters from taking a "
too big
”.
In particular, insurers can rely on their database on past events to help municipalities protect themselves, he added.
"
We must be vigilant
" in order to "
smooth out major events
" and prepare for exceptional phenomena, warned the boss of Axa.
"
We must prepare, one day, perhaps,
for the flooding of Paris
[...] The local authorities have carried out work to retain water, upstream, to make sure that things happen but, but [...] it's going up, at the moment,
”noted the representative.
"
We must prepare for that, put aside reserves to face these large-scale events
," financially, he warned.
Parametric insurance
For its part, Axa "
works on parametric insurance
", and seeks to increase its knowledge of the territories, in order to better identify the risks and to better understand the "
impacts of floods
", in particular.
"
This allows us to mobilize teams upstream, to be reactive in the field, and to do prevention,
" he noted, citing the example of 100,000 SMS sent to Axa customers for warn of the approaching storm Justine.
For the time being, the disasters caused by floods in the south-west of the country, in particular in Lot-et-Garonne, have a “
more modest scale
” than those, of an “
exceptional scale
”, of storm Alex.
The “
number of claims reported
” is growing rapidly as the waters recede, but it remains “
relatively modest
”.
Axa put back in place the device proposed during the storm of last fall.
Traveling in the Southwest, Friday, Jean Castex pleaded for the state of natural disaster to be declared "
as soon as possible
" in areas that have suffered heavy flooding.
The Prime Minister also mentioned the need to carry out "
more structural actions
" in the face of "
these recurring climatic phenomena
", in particular by "
reinforcing dikes
".
