This month's Colorado floods are likely to produce more than $2 billion in economic damages, according to risk modeling firm Eqecat Inc.

Of those costs, approximately $900 million will be for residential property and living expenses with the remainder represented by losses to commercial and government properties.

In a statement Thursday, Oakland, Calif.-based Eqecat noted that the floods have caused significant damage not only to residential and commercial properties but to roads and bridges, and that closed roads and associated detours will add additional business and employment costs.

“Heavy rains, flash floods and mudslides impacted some of the most populous counties,” Eqecat said. “Flooding has resulted in multiple fatalities, with an estimated 1,500 homes destroyed and thousands more damaged in over 17 counties. Most of the financial losses will be borne by residents, since very little flood risk is insured.”

In an interview this week, Carole Walker, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association in Greenwood Village, Colo., said that while large businesses affected by the historic Colorado flooding may have property catastrophe coverages they can tap to cover flood damage, many small businesses will likely be looking to National Flood Insurance Program coverage or federal disaster assistance.

“We have a lot of those small businesses in Boulder, Estes Park, small mom-and-pop businesses,” Ms. Walker said. “You really are concerned whether they had policies in place.”

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With a federal disaster declaration in place, those in eligible counties who don't have insurance will be able to look to federal emergency aid from U.S. Small Business Administration loans, Ms. Walker said. “There is some federal aid available but we're certainly concerned about businesses not having that coverage in place,” she said.

A spokesman for the University of Colorado said the site of the university's Boulder campus spared it from much of the damage that hit others in the Boulder area. “The university proper sits up on a plateau above the city,” the spokesman said. “So the kind of flooding we got was more your garden variety basement and low-level flooding.”

Approximately 80 university buildings were affected, the spokesman said. “We did not have catastrophic damage to laboratories, classroom facilities, housing facilities, with the exception of a few housing facilities,” he said. Three residence halls sustained “significant water damage to garden-level dorm rooms,” the spokesman said.

A collection of housing units for graduate students and families near Boulder Creek also sustained damage, he said. “Nothing was washed away,” the spokesman said. “What we're talking about is water damage on a fairly large scale.”