Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner John Doak said that the tornadothat struck Oklahoma on Monday, now updated to EF-5 strength, mayexceed the $3 billion in damage incurred by the Joplin, Missouritornado in 2011 that killed 161 people, according to a Reuters report.

Meanwhile, catastrophe modeler AIR Worldwide estimates that thereplacement value of damaged properties in the track of the tornadocould be about $2 billion within a buffer zone of 0.4 miles on eachside, and $6 billion for a one-mile buffer zone.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Wall Street analysts agree that the losseswill be in the billions, based on damages from recent historictornadoes like the ones in Joplin and Tuscaloosa, Ala.

A State Farm spokesman says the insurer has seen 3,045 totalclaims from the tornado as of this morning, distributed between 62percent property and 38 percent auto claims.

USAA says it has received 1,300 auto and property claims.

“An official estimate of the number of destroyed homes has notyet been released, however the 1999 EF-5 tornado that followed asimilar path to Monday's EF-5 Moore tornado destroyed more than8,000 homes,” says Tim Doggett, AIR's senior principal scientist,in a statement.

Localized hailstorms also occurred in Missouri and there weretornado sightings in Missouri, Texas, Kansas, Arkansas, andColorado, but the two-mile-wide Moore tornado was the mostdamaging, AIR says.

An AIR analysis found that many homes in Oklahoma are built onconcrete slabs because of soil conditions in the state and so therewere few basements, although the modeler notes that undergroundshelters are considered the safest places to hide when a tornadopasses.

The town of Moore also does not have an official tornadoshelter, according to the town's website.

Mostly wood-frame residential houses populated the affectedcommunity, which AIR says are more vulnerable to high winds andfling flying debris than brick masonry houses.

According to the Insurance Information Institute, tornadoeshave caused $97.8 billion in insured losses in the U.S. between1990 and 2009, making these weather events second only tohurricanes ($152.4 billion) over this same time period as thecostliest natural disasters. Between 2008 and 2010, tornadoes havecaused $30 billion in insured losses.