Last year was an unremarkable one as far as natural disasters were concerned. There were no events on the scale of Hurricane Katrina of 2005 or hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria of 2017. Yet the global insurance industry paid out $76 billion in losses from natural catastrophes, the fourth-highest sum on record, according to reinsurance giant Swiss Re. Economic losses in the US alone totalled $91 billion, mainly from hurricanes and wildfires, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric