A series of earthquakes in Youngstown, Ohio, potentially related to brine-injection wells, caused the city’s mayor to buy earthquake insurance for his home and initiate a moratorium on injection wells near the city.

Natural disasters cost insurance companies more than $32 billion in direct insured losses in the first nine months of 2011, nearly double the average of other years, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

Ryan Erdman, an insurance agent at TAMRAC Insurance Group in Hunt Valley, Md., has never sold coverage for an earthquake – yet.

The earthquake in Japan, where estimated losses would make it the worst disaster in history, will affect insurance rates in the U.S., according to industry experts.

Citing events from the devastating Chilean earthquake to record snowstorms in the Northeast U.S., The Chubb Corp. announced it is estimating losses of nearly $290 million in its first quarter results.

With the backdrop of the devastation in Haiti fresh in people’s minds, New York insurance regulators are not ruling out a similar event in their own state, a key reason they say insurers should promote the opportunity to buy coverage for such a devastating occurrence.