There were 295 natural peril events worldwide last year, causing total economic losses of $US200 billion ($192 billion) and insured losses of $US72 billion ($69 billion), according to Impact Forecasting’s annual natural catastrophe report.

This compares with 257 events in 2011, when insurance losses were $US133 billion ($127.8 billion), the Aon Benfield modelling centre says.

While economic losses were close to average, insured losses were 36% higher than the 10-year average of $US53 billion ($50.9 billion) because the year’s two most costly events were in the US, which has high insurance penetration.

Aon Benfield Analytics CEO Stephen Mildenhall says the moderate losses were reflected in strong growth in reinsurer capital last year.

“Despite growing support for ‘the new normal’ theory of a world dominated by rapidly escalating global catastrophe losses, our study highlights that 2012 returned to a more normal level of losses after the extreme economic and insured losses of 2011,” he said.

Superstorm Sandy and the year-long US drought were the two largest losses, accounting for two-thirds of global insurance losses last year.

Impact Forecasting estimates $US28 billion ($26.9 billion) of insurance losses from Superstorm Sandy and $US20 billion ($19.2 billion) from the drought. It puts the cost of the 2010/11 Queensland floods at $US2.5 billion ($2.4 billion) and the three most severe Christchurch earthquakes at $US19 billion ($18.2 billion).