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More than a century of seismological observations make it clear that all earthquakes have aftershocks.

While aftershocks are often notably smaller than the mainshock of an earthquake, some can be large enough to cause considerable damage. This is particularly true for structures whose lateral load–resisting systems were compromised by the mainshock.

This Verisk study formulated a statistical framework for forecasting aftershocks for earthquake scenarios in Verisk catalogs; investigated the impacts of aftershocks on regional and local loss estimates, taking into consideration the damage states of buildings impacted by mainshocks; and explored practical ways to incorporate loss impacts from aftershocks into Verisk’s earthquake risk analysis scheme.

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