Insured Chilean quake costs now between $8 billion and $12 billion: S&P’s

The global reinsurance industry has shouldered an estimated $8 billion-$12 billion in insured losses arising from the powerful earthquake that struck Chile on Feb. 27, 2010, according to Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. “These losses put a significant dent in many re/insurance companies’ annual catastrophe budgets,” Standard & Poor’s says in its article, Reinsurers Foot The Bill For Chilean Earthquake Losses. “In fact, in many cases, catastrophe losses have already exhausted more than half of re/insurers’ budgets, thereby reducing the built-in cushion for the remainder of the year.”S&P’s further notes that if 2010 turns out to be an active catastrophe year, as the trend indicates, and aggregate losses are in the tens of billions of dollars, the cumulative effects of several catastrophe losses – including the Chilean earthquake losses – could erode the capital of a few re/insurers. This in turn “could cause us to take rating actions,” the ratings agency says.