Japan losses may go up to $35B

The WSJ had an blog article today on the economic cost of the earthquake in Japan.

Disaster modeling company Eqecat estimates a total insured loss from the earthquake and tsunami to be $12 billion to $25 billion.

The estimate includes losses from the effects of earthquake shaking, ensuing tsunami and fires, and losses to car, marine, life, and personal accident insurance.

By contrast, Boston-based AIR Worldwide anticipates significantly higher losses, predicting that insured property losses alone would range be $15 billion to $35 billion. Their estimate doesn’t even include the effects of the tsunami, which the researchers plan to model independently.