Insured losses from Hurricane Ike could run between $50 million and $200 million for damages to the Turks and Caicos Islands, according to a catastrophe risk modeler, and another modeler said before Ike dissipates it could cause carriers $15 billion in losses.
Risk Management Solutions in Newark, Calif., said the losses from Ike are due to wind and storm surge damage as well as increases in the cost for goods and services.
Of the projected figure for Caribbean losses, 70 percent will go to Grand Turk Island ($35 million to $140 million), which bore the brunt of the storm. RMS said that 90 percent of all properties suffered wind damage, according to reports it received. Around 20 percent of the total loss can be allocated to the southeastern Bahamas, with the rest coming from the North and South Caicos Islands.
The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, formed by the World Bank, will pay the Turks and Caicos Islands $6.3 million under its catastrophe insurance program.
This is the program's second payout, the first from a hurricane, said Nikolai von Goihmann a spokesman for the World Bank. The program, formed 16 months ago, last year paid-out $1 million to Dominica and St. Lucia from an earthquake, he said.
Peter Dailey, director of atmospheric science at AIR Worldwide in Boston, said the current track for Ike is "somewhat similar to that of the Galveston hurricane of 1900, though the intensity evolution is rather different."
At that time, the storm intensified rapidly into a Category 4 hurricane after entering the Gulf of Mexico, with estimated sustained winds of 150 mph. Ike has been a hurricane since Sept. 4 and intensified to Category 2 status on the Saffir-Simpson scale with sustained winds at 100 mph.
AIR said that a recurrence of the Galveston hurricane of 1900 could result in insured losses of more than $30 billion.
"However, the NHC does not anticipate Ike will reach such intensity," said Mr. Dailey.
Steve E. Smith, president of Property Solutions, Carvill ReAdvisory, said in a statement that a significant portion of the coast between Corpus Christi and Galveston will be exposed to damaging winds and storm surge.
"This part of the Texas coast is highly exposed to inundation from storm surge," he said. "Losses at this point are hard to estimate and depend highly on Ike's landfall location and strength, but industry insured losses in excess of $10 billion to $15 billion are quite possible."
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