MISSION BEACH, Australia—Loss estimates continue to mount from a series of severe weather events in Australia.

While no detailed loss estimates from Cyclone Yasi, which made landfall at Mission Beach in early February, have been published, modeling agencies EQECAT Inc. said insured losses from the cyclone could reach $540 million Australian ($547.7 million) while AIR Worldwide Corp. said insured losses from the event could reach $1.5 billion Australian ($1.52 billion).

Australia's largest insurer, Sydney-based QBE Insurance Group Ltd., said its “very preliminary estimate” of losses from the cyclone was $100 million.

Sydney-based Insurance Australia Group Ltd. said under its reinsurance program, its losses from Yasi would be capped at $125 million Australian ($126.8 million), but also said it was too early to tell if cyclone claims would reach this level.

Brisbane-based Suncorp Group Ltd. said it expected its net cyclone claims to be capped at $10 million Australian ($10.1 million).

Insurers and reinsurers already were counting the cost of severe flooding in the states of Queensland and Victoria in December and January when Yasi hit earlier this month.

Munich Reinsurance Co. said its losses from flooding in northeastern Australia in the last quarter of 2010 would be about $270 million and it expected its losses from flooding in the first quarter of 2011 to be a similar amount.

QBE said its losses from the December flooding likely would be about $45 million and losses from the January floods would be about $100 million.

IAG said its losses from floods in Queensland and northern New South Wales likely would be between $110 million Australian ($111.6 million) and $130 million Australian ($131.8 million), while losses from severe weather in Victoria likely would be between $25 million Australian ($25.4 million) and $40 million Australian ($40.6 million).

Australian insurers last week provided further details of their reinsurance programs to protect against catastrophe claims.

QBE said expected claims from the this year's flooding would fall within the allowances for large risk and catastrophe claims. For worldwide catastrophes, QBE said it had a single layer of reinsurance coverage of $1.3 billion in excess of a $200 million retention and total coverage of $2.6 billion for 2011.

QBE said it had purchased additional high-level reinsurance catastrophe coverages for Australia and New Zealand and that its captive reinsurer, Bermuda-based Equator Reinsurances Ltd., had purchased catastrophe protection of $100 million in excess of $100 million.

IAG said it had in place a catastrophe reinsurance program that covers losses from $250 million Australian ($253.6 million) up to $4.1 billion Australian ($4.16 billion). It said it had a three-year agreement that reduced its maximum event retention for a first event to $150 million Australian ($152.1 million), and additional coverage that reduced the maximum event retention to $125 million Australian ($126.8 million) for a second event and $50 million Australian ($50.7 million) for a third event.

The insurer also said it had a aggregate cover of $150 million Australian, in excess of $150 million Australian, that would provide protection from accumulated losses from events greater than $15 million Australian ($15.2 million).

Meanwhile, bushfires in western Australia were declared “an insurance catastrophe” by the Insurance Council of Australia last week, but no loss estimates were released.