The March 11th Japan earthquake and tsunami are likely to have caused up to 34 billion US dollars in losses for the global insurance industry. That's according to catastrophe modeling company RMS.
The company's estimate includes 18 to 26 billion dollars in property insurance losses, plus 3 to 8 billion dollars in losses to the life and health insurance sectors.
At the higher end of the estimates, the quake would go down as the most expensive of its kind for the insurance industry in a generation.
And it's already having at least some effect on insurance pricing around the world.