Morteza Bastami - Assistant Professor International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology (IIEES), Tehran, Iran University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran
Shiro Takada - Retired Professor, Kobe University, Japan

A new opportunity for Iranian Insurance Companies is investment on urban lifeline systems and infrastructures for earthquake, which has not been attended so far. A lot of direct and indirect losses incurred by damage to urban lifeline systems during past earthquakes require the development of methods for loss estimation of lifeline systems which are very useful for insurance companies. The aim of this paper is to evaluate economic impact by interruption of power supply system from seismic hazards, in which, a real time methodology is proposed for economic loss estimation of power supply system due to a probable future earthquake. The methodology integrates physical damage assessment, power flow connectivity, and business interruption to estimate direct and indirect economic losses in a single integrated approach, and further, to develop general tools to evaluate economic impacts by interruption of power supply system. The methodology is applied to TREC network and Tehran City to estimate economic direct and indirect losses due to a scenario earthquake. Total estimated loss including direct and indirect losses are 558 million US$. Total estimated direct loss by 475 million US$ is much less than the total direct loss of power supply system in the 1995 Kobe Earthquake by 2 billion US$ but much more than the total direct loss of power supply system in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake by 183 million US$. Total estimated loss for Tehran power system is a big loss considering the costs of repair, material price, and labor salary in Iran, which is enough to encourage Iranian decision makers to purchase new policies and insurance products to cover the future probable losses.

Loss Model, Earthquake Insurance, Lifeline Systems, Infrastructures, Tehran