MUNICH (Bloomberg) — Munich Re forecasts more natural catastrophes will fuel “longer term” demand for reinsurance and support higher rates despite a calm hurricane season this year.The world’s second-biggest reinsurer estimates worldwide losses on catastrophes in 2006 amounted to $45 billion, about one fifth of 2005’s total, it said in an e-mailed statement today. This year’s lack of major hurricanes in the North Atlantic is “no grounds for complacency,” Munich Re said.

“In the longer term, the number of severe weather-related natural catastrophes is set to increase due, among other things, to global warming,” said Munich Re management board member Torsten Jeworrek in the statement. “We regard the price increases that followed the hurricane year 2005 as enduring.”

Munich Re, now the No. 2 reinsurer behind Swiss Reinsurance Co., said catastrophes caused insured losses of $15 billion in 2006. The German company expects the number of hurricanes in the next one or two decades to exceed the annual average of 10 named cyclones and six major hurricanes from 1950 to 2006 because of the “prolonged cyclical warm phase” in the North Atlantic.

This year’s North Atlantic hurricane season, started in June and ended in November, brought far fewer storms than last year, and the insurance industry sustained its lowest losses since 2000, Munich Re said. Insured losses due to tropical cyclones amounted to $250 million compared with around $87 billion last year, including hurricane Katrina, the most expensive in the industry’s history.

This year’s low number of hurricanes reflected “exceptional meteorological factors,” including an increase in dust particles from the Sahara, which absorbed solar radiation and hindered the formation of hurricanes in August, Munich Re said. In October, the “El Nino” effect, which warmed waters in the Pacific, also curbed the formation of hurricanes, it said.

Following this year’s absence of costly disasters, Munich Re last month raised its full-year net income forecast to as much as 3.4 billion euros ($4.5 billion) in 2006, up from a previous estimate of as much as 2.8 billion euros.

The reinsurer also announced plans to spend as much as one billion euros to buy back shares and said it plans to raise its dividend payout “significantly” this year.

Reinsurers help primary insurers such as Allianz SE and Axa SA shoulder risks they assume for clients. Munich Re shares have advanced about 14 percent this year, in line with the 29-member Bloomberg Europe 500 Insurance Index.