Insurers figure little of $30 billion possible damages may be covered.

Insurance companies received more than 30,000 claims last week, as insurance and disaster experts estimated only 10 percent to 15 percent of the estimated $15 billion to $30 billion in damage caused by the Northridge earthquake may be insured.

By the middle of last week, the three largest property/casualty insurers operating in California -- State Farm Insurance Group, Farmers Insurance Cos. and Allstate Insurance Group -- had 29,000 claims, with many more expected.

State Farm, the state's largest insurer with 25 percent of the statewide property/casualty market, had 10,000 claims made last week, said Tom Cordova, spokesman for the Westlake Village office of the Bloomington, Ill.-based insurer.

"We expect at least 50,000 claims," he said, adding that the company was flying in 600 claims representatives from all over the U.S.

"There is going to be a substantial amount of private property damage, both to homes and to businesses that will be uninsured or under-insured," California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi told the Business Journal last week.

He declined to estimate the total damage or project how much of it was uninsured, but he said the Northridge earthquake "is probably the largest loss since 1991, since I've been commissioner."

Garamendi and other insurance experts said much of the damage is not covered because many homes and businesses do not have earthquake insurance and those that do have high deductibles.

State Farm, Farmers and Allstate officials said their earthquake insurance policies have a deductible of 10 percent of a policy's total value. Officials from the three largest insurers, which cover more that 53 percent of the market, said 33 percent to 40 percent of their policyholders in the damaged area had earthquake insurance.

Only very rough estimates of total damage costs were available last week.

"What we're looking at is, based on computer modeling, possible losses of $15 billion to $30 billion," said Kati Corsaut, spokeswoman for the state Office of Emergency Services. "We know that there are hundreds of structures that are destroyed or damaged, beyond that, we don't know."

Initial estimates last week were that just in L.A. County 239 homes were destroyed and 4,500 mobile homes were damaged or destroyed, Corsaut said.

EQE International Inc., a San Francisco-based consulting firm specializing in natural hazard risk assessment, estimated the total losses at $15.1 billion, with $1.5 billion to $1.9 billion of that insured.

Earl Aurelius, vice president of the consultancy which sent 50 structural and civil engineers into the quake-damaged zone last week, said their $15.1 billion figure does not include general business interruption coverage, nor does the state OES figure of $15 billion to $30 billion include such damage.

Of the estimated $15.1 billion in total damage, $5.8 billion was figured to be in residential property damage, $3.7 billion in commercial property damage, $1.5 billion in industrial property damage, $500 million in government-owned property damage and $3.6 billion in damage to infrastructure such as roads, freeways and aqueducts.

EQE estimated $800 million to $1 billion of the residential damage is covered by insurance, as is $500 million to $600 million of commercial property damage and $200 million to $300 million of industrial property damage.

Most government buildings are not insured for earthquake damage and insurance for infrastructure, such as the roads and freeways which were damaged is either nonexistent or "exotic and unusual" and was not included in the $1.5 billion to $1.9 billion insured loss total, Aurelius said.

The EQE estimate that about 10 percent of total damage is covered by insurance "is probably in the ballpark," said Sean Mooney, chief economist with the New York-based National Insurance Information Institute.

Mooney noted in the 1989 Loma Prieta quake in the San Francisco area, only $960 million of the total $7 billion in damage was insured.

The California Fair Access to Insurance Requirement Plan, the state-mandated insurance pool which insures high-risk properties, last week "did not anticipate" having to assess member insurance companies to pay for the losses it suffered in the earthquake, said Stuart Wilkinson, general manager of the L.A.-based Fair Plan.

The Fair Plan was forced to assess member insurers $150 million for losses it suffered in the Southland fires last fall.

Two days after the quake, the Fair Plan had 700 claims reported, Wilkinson said. "We are not a major insurer in the (San Fernando) valley. The reaction right now is that we don't anticipate it (a special assessment) unless things are drastically different," he said.

Northbrook, Ill.-based Allstate Insurance, which has 15.6 percent of the California property/casualty market, had 12,000 claims reported last week, said Allstate spokesman Bob Lapinski.

Los Angeles-based Farmers, which has 13.5 percent of the statewide market, had 7,000 claims reported last week, said spokesman John Millen.

"The damage is drastic; the damage is intense," Millen said. "It's clear that it's going to be costly, we're just not sure to what extent."