This estimate only includes damage noted in municipalities for which the state of natural disaster will be recognized, and which will then be considered as consecutive to drought.
Le Monde with AFP
It may be the most expensive year for this type of climate event. The damage to buildings due to the drought episodes observed in France in 2022 should cost between 1.6 and 2.4 billion euros to insurers, according to figures unveiled Thursday, September 22 by the Insurers’ Federation.
This year, we could indeed exceed 2.12 billion euros recorded in 2003, worse year in terms of drought since the creation of the natural disasters compensation scheme in 1982. The year 2022 should In any case to be more expensive than 2018, so far in second position with damage estimated at nearly 1.5 billion.
This estimate only includes damage noted in municipalities for which the state of natural disaster will be recognized, and which will then be considered consecutive to drought. It does not take into account harvest damage, which will be covered by harvest insurance.
“The most dynamic danger”
Dryness, by succeeding a period of humidification, fuels the phenomenon of remonstry of clay soils (RGA) which affects a good half of the metropolitan territory, and results in ground movements likely to destabilize the house foundations.
In France, around 54 % of individual houses are located in an average or strong exposure area at the RGA. And 3.3 million houses, or about 16 % of the total, is located in a strong risk zone.
Due to global warming, drought is “the most dynamic danger,” said Florence Lustman, President of France Insurers, the Insurers’ Federation. According to a study by the Federation published in 2021, drought in France cost 14 billion euros between 1989 and 2019 and should cost around 43 billion between 2020 and 2050.