Hurricane Dean insured losses may be 2 bln dollars-Eqecat

NEW YORK, Aug 22 (Reuters) Insurers may have to pay about 2 billion dollars to cover losses stemming from Hurricane Dean, storm modeler Eqecat Inc said today.

Oakland, California-based Eqecat said the majority of the losses occurred in Jamaica. Insured losses from the storm's two landfalls in Mexico will likely not exceed 250 million dollars, it said.

Dean was the first hurricane in the Atlantic basin to strike land as a Category 5 storm since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. It has since weakened to a tropical storm.

REUTERS CS BST0250