[Buckeye McFrog]

You get a short-term burst of retail economic activity when insurance companies are forced to empty their reserve funds to pay claims, which gets spent in the real economy.

The unseen back end of that transaction is a reduction in the amount of available investment capital.

[Alberta's Child]

Right -- but I think you can make the case that a large disaster that requires extensive rebuilding might end up improving productivity over a large region as old, outdated buildings and equipment are replaced by new, modern ones.

Isn't this one of the big reasons why post-WW2 Europe and Asia saw such phenomenal economic growth?