[UPDATE (9/15): RMS estimates $6 to $16 billion in insured losses for onshore + offshore losses, with "most" onshore. AIR estimates a range of $8 to $12 billion for onshore losses, with a best guess of $10 billion. Both estimates are lower than initial reports.]

The major cat modeling companies are being a bit more circumspect in announcing projected losses from Ike, perhaps due to some overestimates of losses associated with Gustav.  As we had anticipated, RMS has revised downward their estimates for Gustav:

On Friday, catastrophe risk modelling firm Risk Management Solutions (RMS) issued revised estimates for insured losses as a result of Gustav, dropping its predictions to $2.5 billion to $4.5 billion from the previously estimated $3 billion to $7 billion.

Now the AIR and RMS estimates for Gustav appear quite similar. There are some estimates for losses associated with Ike:

Hurricane Ike, the storm that smashed into the Texas coastline today, may cost insurers as much as $18 billion, said Eqecat Inc., a firm that predicts the effects of disasters.

Ike may cause $8 billion to $18 billion in insured losses on land as it moves from coastal Galveston to Houston and further inland, the Oakland, California-based firm said in an e-mailed statement today. Disruption to energy production is “not expected to be extensive,” the firm said. Flagstone Reinsurance Holdings Ltd., the Bermuda-based insurer, predicted damage of $10 billion to $16 billion industrywide.

It is too early to estimate the losses from Ike, but if you are interested in analogues, Jeff Master’s suggests that damages in Houston proper will be less than Alicia (1983), but losses elsewhere higher. Another possible analogue is Carla (1961), which was a category 4 storm at landfall.

In our normalized datasets these two storms represent about $7 billion and $14 billion in total damage respectively (i.e., $3.5 to $7B insured). There are plenty of uncertainties in the damage at present, and it could fall within this range or even lower (and maybe higher). Time will tell.