Severe thunderstorms in the U.S. from January through June resulted in $34 billion in insured losses, an unprecedented level of financial damage in such a short time, according to Swiss Re Group.

Damages from convective storms in the U.S., those that can come with hail, lightning, heavy rain and high winds, accounted for nearly 70% of the $50 billion in global catastrophic damages so far this year, the reinsurer said Wednesday. Those global figure includes earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.

The storms in the U.S. were so severe, there were 10 that resulted in damages of $1 billion or more, almost double the average recorded over the past decade, according to Swiss Re.

Texas was the state most severely affected.

“The effects of climate change can already be seen in certain perils like heatwaves, droughts, floods and extreme precipitation,” Swiss Re Group Chief Economist Jérôme Jean Haegeli said in a prepared statement. “Besides the impact of climate change, land use planning in more exposed coastal and riverine areas, and urban sprawl into the wilderness, generate a hard-to-revert combination of high value exposure in higher risk environments.”

Other high-profile, weather-fed damage events early this year included heatwaves in the U.S., northwestern China and southern Europe; and wildfires on Greek islands, Italy and in Algeria. Damages and insurance losses from those events are still being tallied, Swiss Re said.

The increasing frequency of extreme weather has created disruptions within the insurance industry and some have retreated from states that are getting hit hard, such as Florida and California.

Examples include State Farm and Allstate, both of which will no longer write new policies in California due to increasing wildfire risk and soaring construction costs.

And AAA has said that it will not renew “a very small percentage” of homeowners and auto insurance policies in hurricane-wracked Florida; customers who remain often see an unprecedented rise in reinsurance rates.

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