Chile insurers get high-tech seismic risk map

In order to better assess the potential impact of earthquakes in specific areas of Chile, the local insurance association AACH commissioned a high-tech seismic map to help insurance companies evaluate their business.

More than 40 experts from Chile, Japan, Norway and the US worked on the map for AACH. It is the Chilean industry's first seismic risk modeling software tool of its kind, local paper La Tercera reported.

The software used as its main input a sample of 7,000 claims paid by the industry after the magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck the country in 2010.

The map has three modules: 1) a geological study and classification of all different types of surfaces in the country, 2) tsunami risk in 11 coastal cities, 3) seismic vulnerability that analyses a specific structure's reaction to a quake.

The purpose of the map is to predict damage to different kinds of building and associated insurance claims.

The map will be available to local governments and to government agencies dealing with natural disasters, La Tercera reported AACH chairman Jorge Claude as saying.

Chile is the second most seismically active country in the world after Japan and is ranked fourth in terms of damage sustained from natural disasters. In the last five years, natural disasters have cost the country US$24bn, with the 2010 earthquake in southern Maule region (VII) accounting for 88% of the total.

The 2010 earthquake cost the insurance industry US$4bn-7bn according to estimates by Swiss Re and Munich Re.

Pictured is a building collapsed in 2010's earthquake

Pictured is a building damaged during the 2010 earthquake.