Japan earthquake insured loss likely below $5bn: CoreLogic

A second modelled insurance industry loss estimate for the damaging earthquake that struck Japan on New Year’s day has now been released, with CoreLogic saying it believes the total will be below $5 billion.

CoreLogic gives a particularly wide-range of uncertainty around its insured loss estimate for the earthquake that struck western Japan on the Noto peninsula.

“CoreLogic estimates that insured losses in Japan due to damage from ground shaking, fires following, tsunamis, and liquefaction could be between U$1 and $5 billion (144.6 billion and 722.8 billion yen),” the company explained.

Further saying that, “This insured loss estimate includes damage to buildings and their contents, as well as business interruption or the costs associated with additional living expenses. Damage to residential, commercial, industrial, and Kyosai structures are included.

“Government property; infrastructure such as road and rail networks; water and electric power systems; and oil and gas pipelines are not included.”

This estimate from CoreLogic follows on the heels of the first official one from Karen Clark & Company, who said that the insurance industry loss from the earthquake will be around US $6.4 billion.

As we said, early unofficial estimates seen by Artemis had suggested a low to mid-single digit US billion cost for the global insurance and reinsurance market.

At the level of industry loss suggested by CoreLogic and also KCC’s modeled analysis, catastrophe bonds and most other excess-of-loss insurance-linked securities (ILS) positions would be expected to avoid direct impact from this Japan earthquake event. But proportional reinsurance arrangements such as quota shares could be on the hook, as well as some aggregate structures that could face further deductible erosion with this quake event.