Insurance industry losses from severe convective storms in the United States have now topped $22 billion as of June 18th, according to Gallagher Re. While this already makes 2026 the 11th consecutive year with annual US SCS insured losses of more than $20 billion, the tally so far is below the 5-year and 10-year H1 averages.
Discussing SCS activity in the US and Canada through June 2026 so far, Gallagher Re’s experts explain, “The first two weeks of June brought nearly daily outbreaks of severe convective storm (SCS) activity that affected several major metro areas from the Rockies to the Northeast in the United States. The stretch featured dozens of confirmed tornado touchdowns, destructive large hail, damaging straight-line winds (including a confirmed derecho on June 10), and flash flooding.”
Gallagher Re estimates that the aggregated insured losses from SCS activity for the June 1st to 17th period will reach into the mid-single-digit billions, with economic losses anticipated to be roughly 20-25% higher.
In addition, SCS activity in Canada, with parts of Manitoba and Saskatchewan provinces particularly affected, is expected to hundreds of millions more of insured losses.
However, while there have been very costly periods of SCS activity this year, Gallagher Re estimates the year-to-date insured loss costs from the peril at now over $22 billion for the United States.
The reinsurance broker explains that this is below the 5-year average ($38 billion) and the 10-year average ($30 billion), but this does already make 2026 the 11th consecutive year with more than $20 billion of insured SCS losses in the US.
Gallagher Re further explained that, “For greater context on how elevated US SCS losses have been in recent years, 2026 currently sits as the 9th costliest H1 for insured losses on an inflation-adjusted basis on record. It sits as the 11th costliest H1 on a normalized basis after accounting for historical events using today’s exposure, wealth, and other socio/macroeconomic factors.”
Summarising the SCS activity seen in the period June 1-17, Gallagher Re notes there were at least 3,590 instances of damaging severe weather reports across 43 states and the District of Columbia (DC), based on filtered SPC local storm reports (LSRs).
Storm reports include: damaging straight-line winds (2,901); severe hail (515); and tornadoes (174). It’s important to note there can be multiple reports for a single tornado in this data.
When it comes to large and damaging hail, 73 of the reports were for hail measuring 2.0 inches (5.1 centimeters) or greater in diameter, affecting at least 17 states.
The NWS Storm Prediction Center shows inflation adjusted tornado counts running somewhere between the 50th and 75th percentile so far this year, but based on daily counts the annual running trend is close to the average year-to-date.
