Catastrophe & Restoration

A prominent New York attorney known as the "Queen of Torts" for her defense of top companies like State Farm is tackling a vastly different job — running the $2.78 billion fund to compensate ground zero workers and others who say they were sickened by the Sept. 11, 2001, terror...

Insurer Cincinnati Financial Corp. said that its Cincinnati Insurance Cos. expects to post catastrophe losses in the second quarter of $150 million to $200 million.

Reinsurer Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd. said it expects the April tornadoes that struck several Southern states will results in losses between $45 million and $55 million.

Risk Management Solutions (RMS) says it estimates insured losses of between $3.5 billion and $6 billion from a tornado outbreak April 25-28.

Since differences in catastrophe-model estimates essentially result from differences in frequency and severity assumptions, modeling pioneer Karen Clark proposes that rating agencies use "benchmark" 100-year catastrophes to gauge cat risks for rated companies, rather than PMLs that can vary widely depending on the modeler and the version of the model...

Another weather forecasting team is predicting an active hurricane season for 2011, calling for an above-average number of storms to form in the Atlantic Hurricane Basin.