Marsh, Inc., amongst the largest of world insurance brokers and risk managers, announced that its office in Christchurch, which was housed in the Pyne Gould Guinness building in downtown Christchurch, was destroyed in the collapsed building.  One Marsh employee is believed to be dead and two others are unaccounted for, as of Wednesday.  Rescuers have continued to try to save people trapped in the building.  More than a dozen people were still believed to be trapped in the Pyne Gould building as of Wednesday. 

These present estimates of insured losses due to this February 22nd Christchurch, New Zealand, earthquake place it potentially within the top ten of most costly world insurance losses within the last 40 years.

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 created the world's costliest insurance loss at more than 71 billion dollars. If the losses from this New Zealand earthquake reach 12 billion dollars, it would rank eighth, in front of 2005's Hurricane Rita at about 11.1 billion dollars and behind 2005's Hurricane Wilma at approximately 13.8 billion dollars.

In terms of costliest world earthquakes, specifically, this Christchurch quake would rank just behind the January 17th 1994 Northridge, California, earthquake, which hit Northridge, Los Angeles, the entire San Fernando Valley, Ventura and parts of Orange County. The insured losses from that infamous quake hit over 15 billion dollars in losses. 

lonce@adjustercom.com