China accounted for about half of the economic losses in the Asia Pacific related to flooding in 2023, with economic losses of more than $32bn and insured losses of $1.4bn. Total economic losses in the APAC region in 2023 reached $65bn with a substantial protection gap of 91%. However, these losses were 48% lower than the average and 32% below the median of the 21st century

Insured losses in the APAC region reached approximately $6bn and were notably below the 21st-century average of $15bn. Even though the statistic is skewed by the outlier year of 2011 (Great Tohoku EQ in Japan), 2023 insured losses, which were particularly driven by events in New Zealand, remained 44% lower than the median

Floods

Flood losses continued to maintain dominance as the costliest peril for the fourth consecutive year, accounting for more than 64% of the loss total this year. In APAC, flooding remained a recurring threat with annual losses exceeding $30bn every year since 2010. Many places saw significant flooding and record rainfall events in 2023 — New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, India, and Pakistan. The South Asia floods (Pakistan and India) left nearly 2,900 fatalities.

Nearly half of the insured losses in APAC were related to two notable events that hit New Zealand from late January to February. Widespread flooding in Auckland resulted in $3.4bn of economic and $1.3bn of insured losses. Only three weeks later, Cyclone Gabrielle caused additional losses in the billions of US dollars. These two events thus became the costliest weather-related events for the local insurance sector on record on an inflation-adjusted basis.

Australian insurers suffered notable losses after the Newcastle hailstorm in May 2023, particularly in December, when two significant events occurred. One was widespread flooding in north Queensland after the impact of Cyclone Jasper, and the other was the Christmas storms that impacted eastern Australia and resulted in more than 65,000 claims.

In 2023, with economic losses of nearly $13bn and insured losses of $1.4bn, tropical cyclone losses for Asia and Oceania were 53% and 70% below their 21st-century averages. The number of fatalities from tropical cyclones stood relatively low for the second year in a row. This might be a result of improved disaster response and adaptation measures, however, many communities remain vulnerable in countries such as Myanmar, where at least 463 people died due to the impact of Cyclone Mocha in May.

Earthquakes

The APAC region was rocked by several large earthquakes in 2023. Nearly 1,500 people were killed in a series of earthquakes in Afghanistan’s Herat Province in October, and more than 200,000 homes were damaged in China’s Gansu Province in December.

Almost the entire region experienced prolonged periods of extreme temperatures in 2023. Notably, a multi-weeklong heatwave impacted many countries in South and Southeastern Asia in April and May. Additional losses in billions of US dollars resulted from drought conditions that affected particularly China and India.