NEW YORK (AP) - US property and casualty insurers expect to pay a total of $6.5 billion in claims covering natural disasters in 2007, a year that cost comparatively less as the US avoided major damage from a hurricane, an industry group reported yesterday.

A preliminary report from the ISO insurance trade group calculated the total based on 23 natural disasters and fires.

A collective tab of $6.5 billion would be the eighth lowest in the past decade. Insurers paid less in 2000, with that year costing $4.6 billion, and in 2002, which cost $5.9 billion. Both are measured in non-inflation-adjusted dollars.

The 2007 payments cover 1.18 million claims from 17 weather events that could include wind, hail, tornadoes and flooding; five winter storms; and one fire. That number is the seventh lowest frequency in the past decade.

The so-called Witch Fire in Southern California is estimated to cost $1.1 billion. That fire invaded north San Diego from canyons to the east in October. It killed two people, and burned nearly 200,000 acres, destroying more than 1,000 homes.

The San Diego fire was second only to a four-day storm that swept through 19 states from Texas to Maine in mid-April. The wind, hail, tornadoes and flooding from that storm is estimated to have caused $1.35 billion in damage.

California was the state that endured the biggest losses, costing $1.23 billion in all. Minnesota was the next costliest, at $747 million.