Munich Re – like all insurance companies – is in the business of alarmism. The insurance business relies on the total risk perceived by all the buyers of insurance products being significantly higher than the actual risk that materialises. The bigger this difference the greater the insurance company’s profits.
In a new press release Munich Re presents its overall picture of natural catastrophes in 2010.
Several major catastrophes in 2010 resulted in substantial losses and an exceptionally high number of fatalities. The overall picture last year was dominated by an accumulation of severe earthquakes to an extent seldom experienced in recent decades.
The facts are not in doubt but Munich Re’s opinionated conclusion and the introduction of global warming into the same breath as earthquakes and extreme weather is intellectually bankrupt and blatantly self-serving:
The high number of weather-related natural catastrophes and record temperatures both globally and in different regions of the world provide further indications of advancing climate change.
Munich Re’s business is best served if the perception of risk is very high, the actual risk is much lower than than that perceived and more and more people take to insuring these exaggerated risks. Munich Re – as other insurance companies – have become expert at taking real data, blending it with unjustified opinions and then applying a totally bogus “pondus” to exaggerating the perceived risk.
The k2p blog 