The American Academy of Actuaries said Wednesday that a future large terrorist attack in New York City could result in $778 billion in insured losses.

Speaking at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) public hearing on "Terrorism Insurance Matters" was Michael McCarter, chairman of the Academy Terrorism Risk Insurance Subgroup. He provided potential property and casualty and group life insurance losses that might occur as a result of a conventional truck bomb terrorist attack, and medium and large chemical, nuclear, biological or radiological events caused by terrorism.

"The largest CNBR event we modeled caused $696 billion in property and casualty losses and $82 billion in group life insurance losses," said Mr. McCarter, whose subgroup used catastrophe risk models by Boston-based AIR Worldwide to generate insurance cost figures.