INSURANCE

Insurers to Pay $2.5 Billion in Damage Claims: Insurance companies will pay that amount for damage losses from a record 11 U.S. catastrophes in the first quarter, an industry trade group said. The estimate ranks the first three months of 1996 as the third-costliest opening quarter in U.S. history, according to Rahway, N.J.-based American Insurance Services Group Inc. The blizzard of 1996 caused an estimated $600 million in damage to insured property in the Eastern U.S. from Jan. 6 to 9. Two later storms caused more than $1.1 billion in combined insured damage. This year topped the previous record of 10 catastrophes set in the first quarter of 1994. The 1994 record of 1.39 million claims, many from the Northridge earthquake, still stands, since only 1.22 million claims were filed in 1996’s first quarter.