Eqecat estimates insured damages from Sandy between $10B and $20B

The kitchen of a damaged house dangles in the open in the Rockaway neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York, U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012./ Bloomberg

Catastrophe modeling firm Eqecat Inc. issued its post-landfall estimates for Superstorm Sandy on Thursday, pegging insured losses at between $10 billion and $20 billion, and total economic damage between $30 billion and $50 billion.

On Monday, Eqecat pre-landfall loss estimates of insured losses of $5 billion and $10 billion and total economic damage losses of between $10 billion and $20 billion. The company said it revised the estimates upward for several reasons.

The large electric and utility losses will trigger significantly more business interruption claims than were expected from a more typical Category 1 storm. Likewise, the outage of New York City's subway and roadway tunnels will lead to loss amplification, Eqecat said.