At a little past five o'clock on the morning of April 18, 1906, San Franciscans were shaken out of bed by a massive earthquake measuring between 7.9 and 8.3 on the Richter scale. The ground shook for nearly a minute, and would do so again as many as 27 times that day–destroying much of the city in the resulting flames, as well as many of the ways the insurance business handled fire and catastrophic risks.
The total loss caused by the quake is in dispute, perhaps because industrywide records were not as carefully kept as they are today.
The Insurance Information Institute in New York estimates the 1906 quake loss at $235 million–about $4.9 billion in 2005 terms–which would make 1906 the third-worst U.S. quake loss, behind 1994's Northridge, Calif., event (over $17 billion in 2005 dollars) and 1989's Loma Prieta, Calif., quake ($11 billion).
Recommended For You
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
