bp / gulf of mexico, page-11

As per market update of 28 April:

At its recent Annual General Meeting, QBE advised that its 2010 business plans included an allowance of $1.28 billion for large risk and catastrophe claims. This allowance includes reinsurance protections of $180 million for claims above $1.1 billion.

We confirm that QBEs estimated large risk and catastrophe claims, which are defined as net claims of $2.5 million and above, for the year to date are $470 million. This compares with an estimated net $430 million for the same period in 2009.

Catastrophe claims for the 2010 year to date include Haiti earthquake, European windstorm Xynthia, Chile earthquake, Melbourne hail storm, Queensland cyclone Ului, Perth hail storm, Transocean oil rig loss, Iceland volcano travel claims, Western Australia earthquake and US tornadoes.

Mr Frank OHalloran, QBEs Group Chief Executive Officer, said despite the unusual frequency of catastrophes for this year, we still have a significant allowance of around $810 million for the remainder of 2010. To put this into perspective, estimated large risk and catastrophe claims for the last eight months of 2009 amounted to a net $485 million.

Can somebody define "modest" exposure?