By Ben Harrington

“….The cost of the devastating natural disaster could lead to global insurance losses of between £9bn and £21bn, risk analysts at AIR Worldwide predicted.

But the final bill will be higher as it does not yet include damage caused by the tsunami or potential claims against the radiation fallout.

The UK insurance industry could be hard hit as it is the third largest in the world and the largest in Europe, accounting for 8pc of total worldwide premium income.

Many of those losses will be felt by the British businesses that operate in Lloyd’s of London, one of the world’s largest insurance markets.

Chaucer, a small Lloyd’s of London insurer, is likely to face serious losses from the disaster because it specialises in insuring nuclear power plants and is one of the world’s biggest insurers of nuclear risk…..”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/financialservices/8379541/Japan-earthquake-insurance-firms-left-with-crippling-bill.html

And this…

Japan’s Earthquake Poses Unique Challenges to Nation’s Insurance System

Copyright © 2012 Casualty Actuarial Society. All Rights Reserved.

“…CHICAGO—The Great Tohoku Earthquake took an enormous toll on Japan in March, but the country’s insurance system weathered the disaster successfully, according to a presentation by a delegation of Japanese actuaries at the CAS Annual Meeting in November. The facts are well-known: a magnitude 9.0 earthquake—the fourth largest worldwide since 1900—struck just off Japan, sending a tsunami against the country’s east coast. More than 15,000 died, economic losses topped $200 billion, and insurance losses passed $30 billion. But the packed session room got a somber reminder of the enormity of the catastrophe as Daisuke Nishihara, an assistant vice president at Swiss Re’s Japan branch, narrated a video of a coastal area a month after the quake and tsunami.   ……”

“…Much of the risk is borne by the Japan Earthquake Reinsurance Company (JER). Private insurers, JER, and the government share the risk, with the government’s share growing as the scale of losses grows. If there are no earthquakes in a year, money collects in a reserve. Before the Tohoku earthquake, the fund stood at about $30 billion….”

“…. As of April, residential earthquake losses totaled $12 billion. Other non-life coverages totaled $7.5 billion gross of reinsurance and $2.5 billion net. Cooperative claims totaled $11 billion, and another $2 billion came from life insuranceclaims…..”

“….With regard to the residential earthquake insurance, the losses were covered by the fund that the government and the insurers had reserved. As a consequence, half of the fund was depleted by the quake and tsunami. For other earthquake insurance, Japanese insurers have their own catastrophe reserves on their balance sheets. As catastrophe claims are paid, the reserve is drawn down. In addition, most Japanese insurers had purchased significant earthquake reinsurance protections, which alleviated insurers’ economic loss and kept the industry financially strong. The solvency margin of the largest insurers—roughly equivalent to the risk-based capital measurement U.S. insurers rely on—will fall a bit, but remain more than two and a half times what regulators require.

Still, the disaster showed some weaknesses in how insurers estimate the financial impact of disasters. Most insurers based loss estimates on the actual distribution of prior disasters, and didn’t model tsunamis. They didn’t anticipate the unprecedented scale of the Tohoku event…..”

http://www.casact.org/newsletter/index.cfm?fa=viewart&id=6300

No mention of Nuclear losses in this article?

That is because the Japanese government is underwriting the whole thing,,

And they want……

Decontamination and bringing the people back to contaminated lands.. this link is the last update to…

Assistance of Residents Affected by the Nuclear Incidents (METI)

December 16, 2011

http://www.meti.go.jp/english/earthquake/nuclear/roadmap/pdf/111216_assistance_02.pdf