(photo credit: Mike_tn)

Here’s how insurance works for you: Instead of paying $200,000 to rebuild your house after it’s been destroyed in a natural disaster, you pay $200 a year (called a premium) to an insurance company that will cover the whole bill in the event that such an unfortunate thing occurs.

Here’s how insurance works for insurance companies: A lot of people pay you $200 a year for protection against the very unlikely possibility that their house will be destroyed in a natural disaster. You profit.

(Of course, you have a team of people with calculators and maps who spend every single day figuring out the likelihood that your customer’s house will, in fact, be destroyed in a natural disaster. If the odds look good, you’ll either charge them a higher premium or refuse coverage altogether.)

Here’s what happened between May 20th and 27th: Hundreds of tornadoes destroyed $7 billion in property, which the insurance companies now have to pay for. That makes 2011 the most expensive year EVER for these companies.

But… better them than you, right?