The sinking of Carnival’s Costa Concordia could turn out to be the biggest insured loss in maritime history.And while not big enough to dent the re/insurance industry’s capital reserves, one analyst said the loss could ruin the year for the industry before it’s even fully begun.The cruise liner was insured by companies including Bermuda’s XL Group, Assicurazioni Generali SpA, and RSA Insurance Group, Bloomberg has reported, citing industry sources.The three are among several insurers facing total costs of about $513 million, said one of the sources, who declined to be identified because terms of the policies are confidential.A team from XL at the Lloyd’s of London insurance market has been working on the Costa Concordia disaster since the weekend but has yet to come to any firm conclusions on cost or liability issues, Reuters said yesterday, citing a person familiar with the matter.XL, which is based in Dublin, Ireland, but has executive offices in Bermuda, declined to comment.The timing of the disaster is difficult for XL, given that it announced fresh 2011 disaster losses of up to $220 million less than a week ago.Some analysts and industry experts have suggested insurers and mutual societies could end up shouldering as much as $1 billion in losses, Reuters and Bloomberg reported.The Costa, a multistory liner carrying over 4,000 passengers and crew, ran aground and capsized off Italy’s west coast at the weekend, killing at least five and injuring dozens.“In the complex world of maritime insurance, there will be two issues to contend with: the clubs of cruise ship companies that insure each other for personal injuries, shipwrecks and environmental damage; and the consortium of insurers who underwrite the ship itself,” Reuters said.An RSA spokesperson told Reuters the company’s exposure to the disaster was below 10 million euros, while a spokesperson for Generali said the impact on the company would be small.Germany’s Allianz confirmed that it too was involved as an insurer for the ship and cautioned any resolution would not be quick, according to Reuters.“It usually takes months and in case of liability claims probably years of investigation to completely settle large marine claims,” the company said in an e-mail.Analyst Joy Ferneyhough at Espirito Santo bank in London said injury and other liability claims could push the total cost to insurers as high as $1 billion, making it the biggest marine loss ever absorbed by the industry.“Initial comments from various insurers and underwriters over the weekend suggest that the insurance loss from the Costa Concordia will likely be $500 million $1 billion,” she wrote in a note yesterday, Reuters reported.Standard Club said it was one of several so-called P&I clubs specialist marine insurers owned by shipping companies providing cover to the Costa Concordia.“As well as supporting our member we are giving the authorities full assistance in their response to the incident,” it said in a brief statement.P&I clubs typically pick up liability claims triggered by shipping disasters. Individual P&I losses exceeding a certain threshold are pooled between the biggest P&I clubs, who in turn buy reinsurance in the event of losses exceeding a set ceiling.Espirito Santo’s Ferneyhough told Reuters the Costa shipwreck was not big enough to dent the insurance industry’s capital reserves, though another analyst said the loss was likely enough to ruin the year for the industry before it has even fully started.“The overall size of the loss in terms of premium in the marine market is going to be quite considerable, it’s going to put the market into loss almost before the year has begun,” said Ben Cohen, an analyst at Collins Stewart in London. “Marine losses tend to be very well spread and quite heavily reinsured as well.”Analysts and brokers have said insurers’ capital reserves remain robust despite absorbing $100 billion of natural catastrophe losses in 2011, making it the industry’s second costliest natural disaster year ever.Carnival Corp, the world’s biggest cruise operator with brands including Cunard and Princess Cruises, fell the most in 10 years in London trading after saying the grounding of the Costa Concordia will cost the company as much as $95 million.Shares fell as much as 23 percent in London trading. The US stock market was closed for a holiday.The reduction in fiscal 2012 earnings will amount to 11 cents to 12 cents a share, it said. Carnival said it anticipates additional costs to the business that aren’t possible to determine at this time.“There will be negative short-term implications for bookings across the cruise sector as pictures of the stricken ship are flashed around the world,” Wyn Ellis, an analyst at Numis Securities in London, who reduced his recommendation on the stock to “hold” from “add”, told Bloomberg.The insurance loss could be $500 million to $1 billion, depending on liability claims, exceeding the loss from the Exxon Valdez disaster including pollution, said Joy Ferneyhough, an insurance analyst at Espirito Santo Investment Bank.Industry experts said it was too early to estimate the final impact on the insurance sector, but warned that the bill would be magnified if fuel leaked from the vessel’s tanks, potentially triggering big pollution claims, or if bad weather caused further damage before the ship is pulled upright, Reuters said.Carnival is self-insured for the loss of the use of the Costa Concordia, which is insured for damage with a deductible of approximately $30 million, the company said.Third-party personal injury liability insurance carries a deductible of approximately $10 million for this incident.Cash costs, excluding the capital cost of the ship, probably won’t exceed $1 billion, which Carnival should be able to accommodate, Bloomberg reported, citing Numis’s Ellis .“Consumer sentiment soon recovers following such tragic events, and we do not expect there to be long-term negative consequences for demand,” Ellis said.“Tragic accidents happen with greater frequency and, sadly, often greater loss of life, in the aviation and rail industry and this does not prevent people using these modes of transport.”“If the industry already didn’t face enough challenges fuel price volatility, capacity absorption, and weakness in the European economy this unfortunate event will reverberate on the group,” Tim Ramskill, an analyst at Credit Suisse in London, told Bloomberg.