Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Lloyd's of London and non- traditional insurers may have higher costs from the California wildfires than companies that protect most homes in the state, including Allstate Corp., according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Most of the traditional writers have explicitly avoided areas of the state prone to wildfires said analyst Thomas Cholnoky in a note to investors today.  The one exception may be fires around the San Diego area, which appear to have jumped from brush areas to non-brush areas.

The fires have burned more than 283,000 acres (115,000 hectares) and destroyed about 700 homes and 100 businesses, making them among the worst in the state's history, said Steve Turner, a spokesman for the State Joint Information Center. The average home in the areas struck by the fires costs $500,000, Cholnoky said, meaning that for every 100 homes lost, the insurance industry would pay about $50 million.

The largest home insurers in the state are State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., Zurich Financial Services AG subsidiary Farmers Group Inc., Allstate, California State Auto Association and Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., Cholnoky said.

Louise Shield, a spokeswoman for Lloyd's, said it was too soon to determine what the London insurance market's losses would be.

So-called excess and surplus insurers offer coverage that isn't available from companies licensed by the state. Lloyd's is the world's largest insurance market, and its underwriters often take on large or unusual risks.

Mike Siemienas, a spokesman for Allstate, the largest publicly traded U.S. home insurer, said the company had no information yet on its losses from the fires.

Allstate fell $1.07, or 2 percent, to $53.38 at 12:45 p.m. in New York composite trading.

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By Erik Holm

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