A seismic risk assessment is often performed on behalf of a buyer of large commercial
buildings in seismically active regions. One outcome of the assessment is that a probable
maximum loss (PML) is computed. PML is of limited use to real-estate investors as it has no
place in a standard financial analysis and reflects too long a planning period for what-if
scenarios. We introduce an alternative to PML called probable frequent loss (PFL), defined as
the mean loss resulting from an economic-basis earthquake such as shaking with 10%
exceedance probability in 5 years. PFL is approximately related to expected annualized loss
(EAL) through a site economic hazard coefficient (H) introduced here. PFL and EAL offer three
advantages over PML: (1) meaningful planning period; (2) applicability in financial analysis
(making seismic risk a potential market force); and (3) can be estimated by a rigorous but
simplified PBEE method that relies on a single linear structural analysis. We illustrate using 15
example buildings, including a 7-story nonductile reinforced-concrete moment-frame building
in Van Nuys, CA and 14 buildings from the CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project
