There were no Hurricane Katrinas, but there were 950 catastrophic natural disaster events, the most since 1974 when Munich Re began tracking such events, MarketWatch reported.

"The figures confirm our expectations and endorse our insistence that risks be consistently written at adequate prices, despite years with comparatively low losses as in 2006," Munich Re board member Torsten Jeworrek said in a statement.

The insurance industry had $50 billion in losses last year, compared to $550 billion in 2005 when the U.S. Gulf Coast was devastated by two hurricanes.

The worst insurance catastrophes of 2006 were Cyclone Sidr, which killed 3,300 people in Bangladesh, the winter storm that caused $10 billion in damage in Europe and summer flooding in England that caused $8 billion in losses.

"We should not be misled by the absence of 'mega-catastrophes' in 2007," Jeworrek said.