Photo Gallery Insuring the World's Risks
Flooding in August along the Neisse River in Germany was just one of the many news items that are diligently entered into the database at Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurance company.
More than a quarter of the world's population, or about 2 billion people, are indirectly insured through the company. The sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig (pictured here) in the Gulf of Mexico will find its place in the company's books.
At the time of the floods in Eastern Germany, Munich Re was also busy tracking rainfall of apocalyptic dimensions in Pakistan, more than 800 wildfires (like the one pictured here) burning in Russia, a storm in Finalnd that had cut off the power supply for 70,000 people, and at least 80 people who were killed and hundreds others who were missing following mudslides in China.
Munich Re paid for the consequences of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 ...
... the sinking of the Titanic ...
... and the destruction of the World Trade Center in Manhattan in 2001.
The earthquakes in Chile and Haiti and the flooding in Pakistan (pictured here) will also find their place in the company's books.
Together with its subsidiaries, 130-year-old Munich Re employs about 47,000 people on all continents. In 2009, the Munich-based company reported a profit of 2.5 billion.
