Record reduction in market capitalisation of insurers

The two week period ending 9th October must rank as one of the worst, if not the worst, on record for insurance and reinsurance stocks. Companies in the sector recorded an average loss in their market capitalisation of 25.0% over the period. Much of this was due to broader financial market and economic issues such as concerns about the effectiveness of the US government’s bail out of the country’s banking sector (which did little to free up the credit markets) and the global dimension of the crisis.