Standard & Poor’s Rating Services (S&P) says the reinsurance industry’s strong capital and very strong earnings thus far in 2012 will enable it to withstand the losses from Superstorm Sandy — even if they’re well outside the range of current insured loss estimates for the event.The feeling among insurance executives right now is that insured losses will top $20 billion.In a published report titled “Global Reinsurers Have A Material Cushion Until Sandy Becomes A Capital Event”, S&P said it believes the sector has adequate capital to absorb the losses from Sandy, even if the estimates deteriorate further. The firm estimates that the insured losses from Sandy would have to exceed $50 billion before they start to materially erode the sector’s capital base.A “material erosion” is defined as five to ten percent of capital after earnings. S&P said this is based on its earnings estimates for the sector, an allowance for catastrophe loads in reinsurer’s results, an assumption of retention by primary insurers and the current capital position of the market.“If our expectations of capital regeneration are not met, our ratings on some individual reinsurers could come under pressure. However, on the whole we continue to believe that Superstorm Sandy will be an earnings event for the sector, and will have a limited impact on our ratings on global reinsurers,” said Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Doug Ostermiller.S&P stated on October 31 that is believe Sandy would not affect most ratings on US property/casualty insurers, global reinsurers and certain catastrophe bonds.