The global disaster count was going so well. Throughout the first 10 months of 2012, the financial tally of natural catastrophes for international reinsurers and insurers was a fraction of the horrors of 2011. Even a tsunami alert that had reporters spending anxious hours watching the beaches of Waikiki in late October 2012 turned out to offer doomsday journalism nothing more exciting than a 2.5-foot (0.76 meters) wave after sunset, with less insured damages than a major highway crash. But then, within 48 hours after the Hawaiian micro-tsunami, Hurricane Sandy rolled in and CNN audiences were treated to hours of live reporting by rain-drenched ‘global news leaders’. With this tropical storm came a big wave of insurance claims, first estimated at $6 billion, but those assessments were upped to $20 billion to $25 billion within one month. By December 2012, the insurance industry was yet to have the final insured
