week may have caused the state's worst insured catastrophe ever.

Preliminary property claims information from Insurance Services Office Inc.

show the insured loss from the latest windstorm will exceed the state's previous most expensive tornado which cost $150 million to clean up in 1992.

Experts at ISO are already compiling loss information to develop estimates of dollar losses on last week's tornado which killed more than 40 people.

They define a catastrophe as an event that causes $25 million or more in insured property losses and affects a significant number of property and liability policyholders, as well as insurers.

But the killer tornadoes which hit Kansas, produced by the same storm system, were not expected to reach record levels based on the latest damage assessments.

In 1992 a string of tornadoes caused $420 million of insured losses there -- the state's most expensive catastrophe in its history.

HURRICANES HUR