While 2013 so far has  been a below-average catastrophe loss year for the global insurance industry, this could easily change in the coming months, Swiss Re warned yesterday.

Just-released sigma estimates put total economic losses from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters at $56 billion in the first half of 2013, of which $20 billion was insured.

Insured losses from natural catastrophes totaled $17 billion, with flooding a main driver.

In a press release, Kurt Karl, chief economist at Swiss Re says:

Though 2013 has so far been a below-average loss year, the severity of the ongoing North Atlantic hurricane season, and other disasters such as winter storms in Europe, could still increase insured losses for 2013 substantially.†

Flooding accounted for some $8 billion of the $17 billion in global insured losses from natural catastrophes in the first half.

As a result, 2013 is already the second most costly calendar year in terms of insured flood losses on sigma records.

Check out I.I.I. facts and statistics on global catastrophes here.

In other news, the late summer  edition of Cavalcade of Risk, a round-up of risk related posts from around the blogosphere, is now live over at My Personal Finance Journey. Our recent post on cyber insurance is among the featured posts.