This kind of event is not out of the ordinary and we would not expect it to have an affect on household insurance rates."Mr Balcombe added: "We have been in this market for five generations, covering all sorts of damage claims in recent years. I would not say that we are 100 per cent accurate, but we are generally pretty close.". But the situation is unlikely to be as serious as past events, mainly because the damage has been localised mainly to Scotland, the North-east and the East Coast."Paul Locke, marketing services manager at Eagle Star, said: "This is the sort of thing that we would have bargained for. However, insurers were quick to play down the Balcombe Group's claims.Commercial Union said: "We feel the damage will be substantially less than pounds 500m. So far we have had 1,500 claims admitted, which really is not above the average."We did wonder whether it would be necessary to send special teams up to Scotland, but the information from our Scottish branches was that it was not necessary."A Royal Insurance spokesman added: "We did open up on New Year's Day because we thought there would be a lot of people with problems.

I would not be surprised if it turns out to be the most expensive natural disaster in the UK."Previous expensive claims against insurance companies range between pounds 1.5bn from the October 1987 storms, to pounds 195m after the February 1991 floods.The Association of British Insurers, the industry's trade body, said it was too soon to form a detailed picture of the extent of this year's claims A more exact idea would probably emerge in a month's time. I have spent the last two days in Scotland and we were dealing with an unprecedented number of cases."Work in Scotland resumed a day after England, so the true scale of any damage, especially to commercial premises, will not be known for some time. Sales in China are thought to have contributed between pounds 200m and pounds 300m to BAT's profits last year.. NIC CICUTTI Storm damage throughout Scotland and the North-east of England in the past few days could lead to a flood of claims of up to pounds 1bn against insurance companies, a leading firm of loss adjusters claimed yesterday. The Balcombe Group, an insurance claims specialist, said it had been inundated by calls, from large firms and households facing losses so far estimated at more than pounds 500m.The chief executive, Nick Balcombe, said: "We believe these estimates are on the conservative side. Yesterday the company denied that it had gathered a group of senior executives to target China and other emerging markets.

The company said that executives meeting in Hong Kong would be discussing BAT's new regional structure.Attention has focused on BAT's interests in China and other developing markets because of the gap between the slowly declining tobacco markets of the West and the enormous growth potential in other markets that have only recently opened to foreign companies.China is understood to have 450 million smokers, smoking 1,700 billion cigarettes a year of which foreign companies have a 4 per cent share. Its views were overruled by a group of institutions backing the deputy chairman, Yogi Deveshwar.One source close to the company said, however, that the appointment of Mr Deveshwar to the top job might have been a blessing: "Given his connections in Delhi, we will not be surprised if ITC manages to come out of the whole affair with little lost, if at all."The ITC affair is the second time in as many days that BAT's Asian operations have caused controversy. Shares in the UK holding company shrugged off the threat yesterday, closing just 1p lower at 564p; analysts doubted whether ITC would be forced to pay the whole fine. The company, which denies wrongdoing, said it would appeal.The tax evasion charge is the latest hitch in the relationship between ITC and BAT, which last year failed to have an outsider appointed to the Indian company's chair. If the penalty is enforced the company may be forced to borrow the funds to pay it, possibly from BAT itself. The case centred on events that took place after Petroleum Shipping, which is responsible for the management and repair of Exxon's tanker fleet, moved from the Netherlands to Southampton in 1994.

Cornelis Van der Horst took the bribes for favouring Keppel shipyard in Singapore during the bidding process for ship repair contracts. He pleaded guity at Southampton Crown Court to three specimen charges of corruption.. TOM STEVENSON City Editor An Indian associate of British American Tobacco faces the elimination of its entire net worth if the Delhi government enforces a 7.99bn rupee (pounds 192m) fine on the company for alleged tax evasion.ITC, which is 32 per cent owned by BAT, is accused of failing to pay more than pounds 150m of tax. Northrop will pay Westinghouse $3bn cash for the defence electronics division, whose products include systems for command, control and electronic warfare.