BBC中文網的【新聞用語】英語教學系列是【時事英語】的續版。
【新聞用語】每星期就一個新聞時事話題，挑選一些報導和分析，講解英語的疑難點，幫助各位通過BBC的英語新聞和時事報導與分析來學習英語。
英語新聞報導原文Words in the News一般是星期五在網上發表。
02 September, 2005 - Published 14:06 GMT
Calculating the cost of Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina is sure to have a big economic impact. Often with natural disasters, it is the insurance industry that is among the first to produce estimates of the economic damage. How do they estimate the cost of the damage? This report from Andrew Walker:
收聽原文報道
The insurance industry is well prepared to make a quick rough and ready estimate of the loss it will suffer. The early figures are based on computer programmes operated by companies called risk modelling agencies. Over the last few days they have been using fairly detailed information in their databases about the area affected.
They have know about the population, housing density, types of construction and the extent of insurance cover. To that they add information about wind speeds, rainfall and the path the storm has taken. They also have to make some estimates about what are called excesses - the amount that policyholders have to cover themselves, before they can claim from their insurers. For big companies, these figures can be millions of dollars.
The insurance cover is predominantly held by householders and private business. There will clearly be extensive damage to government property but industry experts say it is not widely insured. They also say that the cost of damage to offshore oil installations is likely to be very high, perhaps the largest ever suffered by the industry. It is also especially difficult to estimate at this early stage. One expert said that these early figures are not hugely accurate. He also said there are often additional factors that can push up losses - for example, labour and building materials costs often rise because they are in such demand for reconstruction.
In addition there are uninsured losses - which could according to one insurance industry economist put total damage as high as fifty billion dollars.
Andrew Walker, BBC Economics Correspondent
收聽原文單詞
Key words
rough and ready estimate
潦草塞責的估計
housing density
住房密度
the extent of insurance cover
保險范圍
policyholders
保險客戶，保險持有人
predominantly
占主要優勢的﹔主要的
extensive
大量的
offshore oil installations
近海石油開采設施
not hugely accurate
不是非常准確
push up
增加﹔使增大
uninsured losses
未投保損失
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