Lloyd's, the world's biggest insurance underwriting company, said Sept. 14 that it had provisionally forecast a 1.4 billion-pound (2.08 billion-euro, US$2.55 billion) net loss owing to Hurricane Katrina.
"It should be stressed that it will not be possible, for some time, to have a precise view of the ultimate insured loss because this is a complex catastrophe, the full extent of the damage is unknown and the loss is still ongoing," it added.
Lloyd's said that its estimated loss was comparable with the impact of the four U.S. windstorms in 2004, that resulted in a net loss to the market of 1.3 billion pounds.
Swiss Re, the world's second largest re-insurer, said on Sept. 12 that it expected the total loss to the global insurance industry from Katrina to be around $40 billion (32 billion euros).
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2005