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Hurricane Gustav could inflict as much as $10 billion in damage, making it one of the costliest storms in U.S. history.

Risk modeling firm Eqecat Inc. estimated that Gustav, which steadily moved across the Gulf of Mexico before finally making landfall Monday morning in Louisiana, could cost the insurance industry anywhere between $6 billion and $10 billion - easily among the top ten costliest storms the country has ever experienced.

Those numbers, which took into account damage done to homes, offices, factories as well as interrupted business activity, were roughly in line with other projections.

The Newark, Calif.-based firm Risk Management Solutions said it expected both onshore and offshore losses to range between $4 billion and $10 billion dollars. AIR Worldwide Corp., another risk modeling agency, offered a much more hopeful assessment, predicting that onshore losses would only climb as high as $4.5 billion.

Those projections, which did not incorporate the impact of flooding, were made as late as Monday evening. However it often takes days or weeks after a major storm hits to assess the full extent of the damage.

While staggering, the estimates for Gustav fall far short Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged the Gulf Coast region in 2005, resulting in $41.1 billion in property damage alone, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Adjusted for inflation, Katrina resulted in more than $43 billion in insured damage.

Nor do the estimates for Gustav come anywhere close to Hurricane Andrew, which caused $22.9 billion in damage on an inflation-adjusted basis when it struck Florida and Louisiana in 1992.

Still, those numbers are roughly in line with federally supported computer projections pay day loans. Gustav could produce $8 billion in property damage, according to a software program used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Institute of Building Sciences that calculates potential losses from natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes.

By Tuesday morning, forecasters had downgraded Gustav to a tropical depression. Still, the storm is expected to drench parts of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Arkansas through Thursday.

Gustav is just the second hurricane to make landfall so far this year. Hurricane Dolly swept through Southwest Texas in July, causing as much as $600 million in damage according to preliminary estimates provided by Insurance Information Institute.

Now, all eyes turn to Hurricane Hanna, which is currently located in the Bahamas. The Category 1 storm is expected to make landfall along the Southeastern coast sometime Friday evening. 

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