Probabilistic assessment of earthquake insurance rates for buildings - Seismic Risk Analysis and Management of Civil Infrastructure Systems - page 795

Table 29.6 Variation of pure risk premium and commercially priced earthquake
insurance rates for reinforced concrete buildings with respect to the degree of
compliance with the seismic code

Pure risk premium rate/commercially priced
earthquake insurance rate (‰)

Seismic zone AC Best estimate NAC

I 3.13/5.22 6.13/10.21 8.50/14.17

II 2.54/4.23 4.09/6.81 5.21/8.68

III 2.32/3.87 2.70/4.50 3.27/5.45

IV 1.79/2.99 1.99/3.32 2.68/4.47

V 0.82/1.36 0.93/1.55 1.55/2.58

Note: AC according to the code; NAC: not according to the code.

assessment of earthquake insurance rates. Nonetheless, seismic hazard
studies usually focus on the occurrence rates of large magnitude earthquakes
rather than those of the small and moderate magnitude earthquakes.
The DPMs based on expert opinion (Gurpinar et al. , 1978) give two sets
of subjective damage probabilities for reinforced concrete frame buildings
constructed in the different seismic zones of Turkey. The fi rst set 'AC' cor-
responds to buildings that are designed and constructed in conformance
with the specifi cations designated in the 1975 Seismic Code (1975) while in
the second set 'NAC', it was assumed that the earthquake resistant design
provisions are violated. The availability of this information facilitates the
computation of the commercially priced earthquake insurance premium
rates for AC and NAC class buildings. The results are displayed in Table
29.6. This aims at showing a set of earthquake insurance premium rates
ranging from a minimum (corresponding to a building fully complying with
seismic design provisions) to a maximum (failing to comply with seismic
design provisions). The earthquake insurance premium rate of a building is
expected to lie between these two bounds. The earthquake insurance
premium rates based on expert opinion damage estimates showed that
violation of the code requirements in the design and construction of build-
ings results in signifi cantly higher insurance rates.

29.3.4 Evaluation of the computed earthquake
insurance rates

The best estimates of earthquake insurance rates obtained herein show
differences with respect to both what previous researchers have determined
and what is being applied currently in the international earthquake insur-
ance implementation. At the international level, the maximum earthquake