An increase in severe weather events, driven by human-caused pollution and resulting rising global temperatures, is having huge ramifications on the U.S. insurance industry.

What's happening?

German reinsurer Munich Re found that, during the first half of 2025, more than 70% of global damage from weather disasters occurred in the United States, costing more than $93 billion, NBC News reported.

It noted that 90% of insurance industry losses have come in the U.S. and that uninsured Americans and local governments have absorbed $22 billion in damages.

A string of severe storms in March caused $6.7 billion in damages, and tornadoes in May cost $5 billion.

But nothing matches the deadly wildfires that devastated much of Southern California in January. The blazes, which resulted in at least 30 deaths and forced thousands of evacuations, caused roughly $53 billion in damages.

"Losses are on the rise because often properties are in harm's way," Munich Re climate scientist Tobias Grimm told NBC News. "People still live in high-risk areas."

Why is extreme weather concerning?

Extreme weather events, such as wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods, are happening with more severity — and sometimes with greater frequency. 

The scientific community agrees that rising global temperatures are behind this change, and that those temperatures are rising because of human-caused pollution.

The change has been so drastic that one expert referred to rising temperatures as "basically steroids for weather."

Researchers also believe the California wildfires were made worse by the warming planet, saying dry, windy weather amplified the fires' ability to spread quickly.

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An increase in the length, strength, and frequency of extreme weather puts more households at risk. With inadequate home insurance coverage or no coverage at all, many people will have to shoulder the financial burden of damaged or destroyed property without support. 

What's being done about severe weather?

Many experts worry about the impact recent cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will have on severe weather forecasting and reporting.

Among those cuts was the NOAA's annual Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters report, which analyzed the cost of weather disasters. Without that report, private reports such as Munich Re's become more vital.

"The probability of extreme weather is changing," Grimm told NBC News. "So we need to adapt and, of course, to mitigate future losses."

But we can all do our part to decrease the threat of extreme weather by preventing the release of planet-warming gases.

Switching from a gas-guzzling car to an electric vehicle, investing in solar panels, and using less plastic are all effective ways to reduce our polluting impact.

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