Worldwide insurance and reinsurance losses related to the three major hurricanes that hit the United States this year will total $57.6 billion, according to leading provider of strategic information services to the commercial insurance industry.

The estimate by Advisen Ltd. is higher than a $50.3 billion estimate released by Property Claim Services, a unit of Insurance Services Office Inc. last month.

By predicting thus far unreported losses from State Farm, the largest personal lines insurer, unreported losses from regional mutual insurers and smaller global reinsurers, developing and as yet un-filed claims for damage from Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Wilma, and the impact of income taxes, Advisen projects pre-tax insured losses per hurricane to be $40.4 billion for Katrina, $6.4 billion for Rita, and $10.8 billion for Wilma.

This compares to estimates by Risk Management Solutions which put Hurricane Wilma losses at between $8-12 billion, Rita losses at $4-7 billion and Katrina losses at $40-$60 billion.

Based on reported property and business interruption losses to date, Advisen has calculated current after-tax totals for Hurricane Katrina at $28 billion, for Rita at $4.5 billion and Wilma, $4.8 billion.

The combined losses from Katrina, Rita and Wilma amount to more than twice the annual total for other US natural disasters and one and a half times the losses from the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, Advisen noted.

?The devastation these storms caused has resulted in conflicting and confusing reports related to insurance claims and costs,? said David K. Bradford, executive vice president and editor-in-chief of Advisen.

?Our research underscores the extent of the damage caused by these catastrophes, and offers comprehensive insight regarding how these storms will most likely impact the insurance industry based on information currently available,? he said.

Several unsettled variables could cause Advisen?s estimates to increase dramatically although it will take several months before these factors are settled.

Flood losses could elevate Advisen?s estimates by billions of dollars if lawsuits to force insurers to cover flood damage related to Hurricane Katrina are successful. Additionally, several hurricane-related pollution lawsuits could add hundreds of millions of dollars to Advisen?s totals.