Insurers double flood loss estimate UK insurers have revealed the scale of the financial fallout from a summer of floods, with their industry body doubling its estimate of losses for June alone to £500m. The Association of British Insurers, which had previously put the expected costs at between £200m and £300m, made its upward revision hours after RSA became the first big company to quantify the losses it faced. In an unscheduled trading statement, the FTSE 100 insurer said it would take an estimated £50m hit from the heavy rain that had fallen across swaths of Britain for the past six and a half weeks. The group said it had faced 6,500 claims for flooding, storm and hailstone damage during the period - an unusually high level for the time of year. These numbers suggested that fellow insurers Aviva, Legal & General and Admiral would take hits in the same period of £75m, £20m and £15m, respectively, according to Eamonn Flanagan at stockbrokers Shore Capital. The insurers losses come after the UK endured the wettest June in more than a century, according to the Met Office, with rainfall levels twice the historical average. Downpours have continued this month and flood alerts remained in place on Wednesday in several regions. However, analysts said the total costs to insurers were not on track to top those they endured five years ago, when a series of destructive floods landed them with a total bill of £3bn. Insurers traditionally respond to such losses by increasing premiums for households - they rose about 10 per cent after the 2007 deluge. James Rakow, insurance partner at Deloitte, said they were already expected to push through increases of between 5 and 10 per cent this year, on the back of "inflationary pressure" - and the UK floods only made this more likely. In addition to the UK floods, RSA also said it would suffer a £35m loss from two earthquakes that struck Italy's northern industrial region of Emilia-Romagna in May. The UK weather-related damage cost RSA an estimated £40m in June, and £10m so far in July. The East Midlands, the north-east and north-west of England experienced the highest number of house, motor and property insurance claims, RSA said, adding it had already paid out more than a third of them. Analysts said that while the estimated losses were worse than they expected, RSA should be able to absorb them without cutting its dividend. The group has operations in 33 countries spread throughout Europe, North America, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. Shares in RSA fell as much as 3.9 per cent on Wednesday morning although they later recovered to close down 0.6 per cent at 107.7p .