document: GENERAL ACCIDENT , the leading British insurer , said yesterday that insurance claims arising from Hurricane Andrew could ` cost it as much as Dollars 40m . ' Lord Airlie , the chairman who was addressing an extraordinary shareholders ' meeting , said : ` On the basis of emerging information , General Accident advise that the losses to their US operations arising from Hurricane Andrew , which struck Florida and Louisiana , might in total reach the level at which external catastrophe reinsurance covers would become exposed ' . What this means is that GA is able to pass on its losses to external reinsurers once a certain claims threshold has been breached . It believes this threshold may be breached in respect of Hurricane Andrew claims . However , if this happens , it would suffer a post-tax loss of Dollars 40m -LRB- Pounds 20m -RRB- . Mr Nelson Robertson , GA 's chief general manager , explained later that the company has a 1/2 per cent share of the Florida market . It has a branch in Orlando . The company 's loss adjusters are in the area trying to estimate the losses . Their guess is that losses to be faced by all insurers may total more than Dollars 8bn . Not all damaged property in the area is insured and there have been estimates that the storm caused more than Dollars 20bn of damage . However , other insurers have estimated that losses could be as low as Dollars 1bn in total . Mr Robertson said : ` No one knows at this time what the exact loss is ' .
extractive_keyphrases: hurricane andrew insurance claims losses insurer