When natural disasters and extreme events such as storms, floods and earthquakes occur, it is not only people, residential buildings and infrastructure that are seriously affected, but also industry. Direct losses to installations as well as indirect losses, e.g., the interruption of production, can cause severe damage to companies and the economy as a whole. For a comparative and quantitative risk assessment, and being a prerequisite for emergency planning and crisis management (e.g., planning of mitigation measures), a financial appraisal of industrial assets at risk is needed. This paper presents the reference installation approach, which is a methodology that allows a consistent and transparent assessment of individual industrial asset values. The results of this bottom-up approach can be used for a detailed spatial mapping of industrial assets taking into account the characteristics of different sectors. [Received 9 May 2007; Revised 31 August 2007; Accepted 11 September 2007]