Tsunami not an insurance disaster
From CNN's Jim Boulden
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(CNN) -- As millions of Asians seek to repair shattered lives amid a mounting death toll, experts say the economic impact of the tsunami tragedy appears to be much smaller than other natural disasters.
One case in point is insurance, which suffered a record year for disaster losses in 2004.
While billions of dollars were paid out for the hurricanes of 2004 in the United States, the Caribbean and Japan, the final payout for the Asian tsunami may only be in the millions of dollars for each of the major insurance companies.
That's because despite experiencing the aftermath of the biggest earthquake in 40 years, the industry expects few people and properties in the region to have had insurance.
This is especially so in India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
"There are a lot of poor areas, a lot of areas where insurance is not common," Malcolm Tarling, from the Association of British Insurers, says.
"And I think taking that into account, there's a good chance that many of the properties that have been affected would not, I am afraid, be covered by insurance."
Munich Re says it expects the total economic cost of the tsunami disaster to be around $10 billion.
Tourists on package holidays will be able to claim for medical costs and lost items, but tour operators are unlikely to have their own insurance to cover the costs of such an unusual event as a tsunami or an earthquake.
"They can insure against it, but quite often the cost of taking out that insurance is so high that you just wouldn't do it because the chance of this happening again is thought to be very, very small indeed," says Keith Betton, from the Association of British Travel Agents.
So many operators will cover the extra costs themselves, as will many independent tourists who did not have specific insurance to cover loss due to natural disasters.
What's more, the insurance industry says it writes policies for what might happen, not for what is highly unlikely.
"If you were booked to go to somewhere in Asia next week and the place you were going to has just been knocked out of existence, then you are not going to get your money back from them and you're not going to get your money back from the insurance company either, unless it specifically said it would do so. And that's unlikely," says Betton.
Insurers in Scandinavia, Germany and Britain are likely to see many life insurance claims, but in south Asia, few local people will have life cover, with experts saying it could be as low as one in 10.
But if whole families have been wiped out, there may be no one left to file a claim.
