Hurricane Dean seen costing insurers up to $1.5bln

LONDON, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Hurricane Dean, which has buffeted the Caribbean and Mexico, is likely to cost insurers up to $1.5 billion, disaster-modelling firm Risk Management Solution (RMS) said on Tuesday.

The industry's bill from Dean, the first hurricane this year in the most powerful category 5, is likely to be between $750 million and $1.5 billion, RMS said.

The majority of claims will come from damage caused by the storm in Jamaica, RMS said. Only $300 million in claims is likely to come from Mexico, as the storm made landfall in a relatively sparsely-inhabited part of the Yucatan Peninsula.

If Dean had tracked further north and hit the tourist cities of Cancun and Cozumel, the insured loss in Mexico would have been three times higher, RMS said.

"Though Jamaica has taken a large hit, the track for a category 5 storm could hardly have been better planned to minimize the damage," said Claire Souch, senior director of model management at RMS.

((Reporting by Simon Challis

Editing by David Holmes

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