JPMorgan Chase & Co. Insured losses from the temblor may be $12 billion

[Serpo]

February 22, 2011 – NEW YORK – New Zealand’s deadliest earthquake in eight decades may be the costliest natural disaster for insurers since 2008, according to estimates from JPMorgan Chase & Co. Insured losses from the temblor may be $12 billion, Michael Huttner, an analyst at JPMorgan, said in a note to clients. That would be the most expensive calamity since the $19.9 billion loss from Hurricane Ike, which struck the U.S. in 2008, according to the Insurance Information Institute, a New York- based trade group. The 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck this week, killing at least 38 people, toppling buildings and trapping office workers in Christchurch, New Zealand’s second-largest city. Prime Minister John Key revised the death toll from a provisional count of 65 in a Television New Zealand interview today, and said that the number is likely to rise. A 7.0-magnitude temblor shook the city on Sept. 4, costing insurers an estimated $6 billion, according to Huttner. “Even buildings which are still standing may have hidden structural damage and could then need to be rebuilt,” he said in the note. “This is a very conservative assumption on our part and in support of this we note that all reinsurers revised” cost estimates for the previous earthquake. -Bloomberg

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/new-zealand-quake-may-be-cosliest-disaster-in-3-years/

[BrewTech]

Karma's a bitch.