Tallying the Costs of Hurricane Sandy
Now that Hurricane Sandy has passed, it’s time to tally up the costs associated with the devastating storm.
According to Jeanne Salvatore, Senior Vice President for Public Affairs at the Insurance Information Institute in New York, it could be one of the most expensive storms to date. But figuring out the final bill won’t be an easy task right now.
“It is likely that Hurricane Sandy is going to rank as a top-ten insured catastrophe. It is likely to be greater than last year’s Hurricane Irene, which was $4.3 billion of insured losses. But less than Hurricane Katrina, which at the time resulted in $41 billion of insured losses.”
For a more precise measure of how much money it’s going to take to get the Northeast back on its feet, disaster modeling company, Eqecat, pegs the total at a whopping $20 billion.
And Peter Morici at the University of Maryland says that costs could actually hit upwards of $35 billion to $45 billion. That alone would put it on par with Hurricane Katrina. But he also projects that Sandy could rack up an additional $36 billion in recovery spending.
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