Natural disasters, mostly caused by extreme weather, caused damage worth more than $60bn (£34.3bn) this year alone, a UN conference on climate change was told.
Research from Munich Re, presented at the conference, found that this summer's European heat wave cost more than $10bn in agricultural losses.
This also caused 20,000 deaths across the continent.
Other research revealed that changing weather patterns had made Britain twice as stormy as 50 years ago.
Munich Re, which has tracked the financial cost of natural disasters during 2003, said flooding in China had cost nearly $8bn and a tornado in the US Midwest resulted in $3bn insured losses.
