Following a fairly mild earthquake which shook the Queen Charlotte Islands and surrounding areas in British Columbia in early February, a second quake of a much greater magnitude of 6.8 on the Richter Scale occurred in the northern part of Washington state in the U.S. at the end of the same month. Although the tremor was felt as far north as Alaska, it caused little damage within B.C. As one insurance CEO observes, “there were surprisingly no business interruption claims out of B.C., the only claims that came in were for really small losses, like things that had fallen off of a shelf”. The Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) is still investigating potential insured losses, including structural damages which may have been caused to buildings. Crawford Adjusters says that it is also monitoring claims arising from the incident (see Insight of this issue for further details).
The Washington state quake did result in about US$1 billion in insured losses, according to the Insurance Information Institute (III). Overall, between US$2 billion to US$4 billion in damage is estimated to having been caused by the tremor, with most of loss suffered in the state’s capital Olympia (closest to the epicenter) and Seattle.
