TERROR IN OKLAHOMA CITY : Blast Seen as Pointing Up Terrorist Risk : Security: The bombing will spark reviews of measures at commercial buildings, government centers and other structures, experts say.

Far more than the World Trade Center bombing of 1993, the Oklahoma City blast will force American employers, building managers and insurers to treat the risk of terrorism as a basic fact of business life, as it has been for years in Europe and elsewhere, experts said Thursday.

At the very least, Wednesday’s explosion will spark a thorough security review of large commercial buildings, government centers and other high-profile structures seen as potential targets, they said.

“This will have a much greater impact than the World Trade Center because--let’s face it--that was New York, and people expect things like that to happen in New York or L.A.,” said Robert McGuire, the former New York City police commissioner who is president of Kroll Associates, one of the world’s largest private security firms.

“Nobody has yet thought through the dollar implications of this,” he added, “but there’s no question it’s going to be a huge number.”

After the World Trade Center bombing, the New York Port Authority, which owns the complex, hired Kroll to review its security measures.

As a result, the authority added more guards at entrance points, tightened access to parking lots, installed closed-circuit cameras and otherwise beefed up security at all its facilities, McGuire said.

But the trade center explosion--which killed six, injured 1,000 and cost private insurers $510 million in claims--still didn’t prompt an across-the-board recognition of terrorism as a threat that everybody faces, he said.

Paul Chamberlain, a Los Angeles-based security consultant and former FBI agent, agreed with McGuire that Oklahoma City may rock that complacency.

The federal facility ravaged by Wednesday’s blast was “just a run-of-the-mill, standard government building like in 100 other cities,” Chamberlain said. “People are going to say, ‘Hell, that building is no different than mine. What should I be doing?’ ”

Beyond any security measures that businesses take voluntarily, insurance companies may force changes of their own. In 1992, in the wake of Irish Republican Army bombings, the international insurance industry excluded terrorist acts from many large property insurance policies in Britain, forcing the government to step in as insurer of last resort.

While nobody expects such drastic action in the United States at this point, should a clear terrorist pattern develop, it could indeed become harder and more expensive to insure major buildings here, insurance experts said.

Beset in recent years by such massive catastrophes as the Northridge earthquake and Hurricane Andrew, the insurance industry has had to revamp the models it uses to predict likely claims losses from natural disasters.

A string of terrorist acts could provoke the same kind of review of insurance models for man-made catastrophes, said I. Steven Goldstein, spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute in New York.

“Insurers are going to demand more security,” he said.

There may be more at stake than just potential property losses. The New York Port Authority has been hit by a number of lawsuits from blast victims who claimed that the agency’s negligence was a factor in their injuries and loss of work.

Employers could face similar liability claims from their workers, or building managers from their tenants, if they are seen to be putting people at risk because of lax security.