“No Extreme Weather” Say Insurance Companies

One of the mantras of climate change activists is that there will be more extreme weather events such as hurricanes and cyclones. “In fast we are seeing it now” they often add earnestly, despite the fact that both the U.S. and Australia have recorded below average storm intensities and frequency on the last decade.

Insurance companies, who stand to lose trillions if they get this wrong, are also saying there has been no change in their business plans.

From WUWT:

Insurance companies not seeing effects from posited ‘climate change’ spawned weather disasters

 

Lack of major disasters gets Lloyd’s of London back in profit –

disastercollage

WUWT reader “jimbo” writes in Tips and Notes: We often hear how climate disasters / extreme weather events are getting worse. We know there is no evidence and sometimes the opposite is seen. Now let’s look at the insurance industry. Surely they could tell us that things are indeed getting worse than we thought!

Surely Warren Buffett has an eye for increasing premiums in the face of extreme weather events?

CNBC – 3 March 2014
No climate change impact on insurance biz: Buffett
The effects of climate change, “if any,” have not affected the insurance market, billionaire Warren Buffett told CNBC on Monday—adding he’s not calculating the probabilities of catastrophes any differently.

While the question of climate change “deserves lots of attention,” Buffett said in a “Squawk Box” interview, “It has no effect … [on] the prices we’re charging this year versus five years ago. And I don’t think it’ll have an effect on what we’re charging three years or five years from now.” He added, “That may change ten years from now.”………

Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway owns several insurance and reinsurance interests—including Geico and General Reinsurance—and often has to pay significant claims when natural disasters strike.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101460458

What about Lloyd’s of London?

Reuters – 25 September 2014
….But Lloyd’s combined ratio, a measure of profitability showing how much insurance premium is paid out in claims and expenses, deteriorated to 88.2 percent from 86.9 percent. A ratio below 100 percent indicates an underwriting profit. “It’s been a fairly benign period for major catastrophes,” Parry said.

Insurance underwriters tend to perform less well in the absence of major catastrophes, as insurance premiums fall…..

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/09/25/uk-lloydsoflondon-results-idUKKCN0HK0ML20140925

See also:

Lack of major disasters gets Lloyd’s of London back in profit

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-2209103/Lack-major-disasters-gets-Lloyds-London-profit.html

Scientists- Humans Not Responsible For Warming On West Coast of U.S.

I wonder how many of these studies will start to emerge over the next few years- and how many will be reported by the ABC.

From Watts Up With That

Surprising PNAS paper: CO2 emissions not the cause of U.S. West Coast warming

pdo warm and cold phases

The rise in temperatures along the U.S. West Coast during the past century is almost entirely the result of natural forces — not human emissions of greenhouse gases, according to a major new study released today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Northeast Pacific coastal warming since 1900 is often ascribed to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, whereas multidecadal temperature changes are widely interpreted in the framework of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which responds to regional atmospheric dynamics. This study uses several independent data sources to demonstrate that century-long warming around the northeast Pacific margins, like multidecadal variability, can be primarily attributed to changes in atmospheric circulation. It presents a significant reinterpretation of the region’s recent climate change origins, showing that atmospheric conditions have changed substantially over the last century, that these changes are not likely related to historical anthropogenic and natural radiative forcing, and that dynamical mechanisms of interannual and multidecadal temperature variability can also apply to observed century-long trends.

Full article here