"We are looking at a multibillion dollar loss given the current predicted track," Robert Hartwig, the institute's chief economist, told CNBC television.

"But even small changes in the track either north or south can change really that number by billions of dollars," he added.

Hartwig said insurers were ready to face the fallout from Frances, though they were still scrambling to pick up the pieces from Hurricane Charley's devastating Florida hit in August which left 20 people dead.

"We modelled for disasters just like this, we have more than adequate financial resouces to be able to handle this even though the desasters will occur in the same state," he said, noting that "12 years ago (Hurricane) Andrew cost 20 billion dollars in today's dollars."

Asked about rising rates, Hartwig said "rates have been rising steadilly since Andrew and they are likely to continue on that upward trend. But so far from the licenses we have seen there is not a fundmental reassesment in doubling or trippling the rates as we saw after Andrew."

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