Climate Protection Gap Measurement Research Note

Climate Protection Gap Measurement Research Note

The phrase "protection gap" does not identify one universal calculation.

Swiss Re Institute's sigma record reports observed economic and insured losses from events that occurred during a defined year. For 2025, it reports $220 billion of global natural-catastrophe economic losses and $107 billion of insured losses. The simple difference is about $113 billion, subject to rounding.

Swiss Re's Natural Catastrophe Insurance Resilience Index asks a different question. It estimates needed and available protection against modeled expected loss. Its 2025 natural-catastrophe protection gap is $424 billion in premium-equivalent terms. The model excludes wildfire because of data limitations.

These values are not competing estimates of the same quantity. One is an event-year loss comparison. The other is a modeled protection-need measure.

Every metric record should preserve the source, publication date, loss or protection year, geography, peril scope, units, economic-loss definition, insured component, method, exclusions, and revision status. No protection-gap number should become an undated headline.