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Travelers' results boosts US P&C insurers

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The stock prices of US insurers climbed strongly last week after solid results from early reporters confirmed expectations of robust Q3 earnings and provided optimism on pricing outlook.
Primary insurance giant Travelers led the pack with a 7 percent gain during the week.
The insurer kicked off the Q3 reporting season with a 161 percent year-on-year increase in operating income, as lower catastrophe and non-cat weather losses boosted profitability.
The insurer also reported continued momentum on rate increases for commercial insurance, boosting optimism that the US P&C sector will be able to achieve compound rate gains.
Other primary insurers also benefited from the hope of a rising tide in US P&C insurance pricing, with Ace and Chubb up more than 4 percent for the week.
Specialty insurer Markel climbed 6.1 percent and WR Berkley was up 5.5 percent during the week.
The gains compared to a 0.3 percent advance by the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index.
Meanwhile Bermudian Platinum climbed 5 percent after its third quarter results beat Wall Street consensus.

London stocks continue outperformance

Click to enlarge London (re)insurance stocks climbed modestly last week, extending their strong rally during 2012.
Lloyd's insurer Beazley was the top performer, advancing 3.9 percent for the week. This compared to the 1.8 percent advance of the UK benchmark FTSE 100 index.
Short tail-focused Amlin and Lancashire both climbed 2.2 percent for the week.
The sector is firmly in positive territory for the year to date, with Beazley, Amlin and Hiscox all up around 35 percent for the period as strong return on equity performance has boosted investor appetite.
Even Lloyd's minnow Novae - the worst performing stock of our London composite - is more than 10 percent ahead of the FTSE 100.

European (re)insurance stocks up

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The Insurance Insider's universe of European (re)insurers performed strongly last week, driven by positive news flow on the continent's sovereign debt crisis.
Mapfre - which has been one of the most volatile stocks in the sector during 2012 - climbed 5.6 percent last week after rating agency Moody's decided against removing Spain's investment grade credit rating. Moody's said the European Central Bank's pledge to buy Spanish debt had made it less likely that the country would lose access to credit markets.
French insurer Axa was the strongest performer during the week with a 5.9 percent gain.
Zurich fell 1.1 percent last week after announcing a surprise $550mn pre-tax Q3 charge for increased claims reserves on its German medmal and architects' and engineers' books, as well as a deferred acquisition cost for its German life book.
The global insurance giant estimated that this would reduce third quarter net income by $390mn.
Swiss Re was the strongest performing reinsurer, climbing 5 percent during the week. Swiss Re and Hannover Re are leading the pack among their cohort for the year to date, as lower catastrophe losses have boosted their share prices more than 40 percent.
Among the European stocks we track only Mapfre is in negative territory for the year to date.

Brown & Brown leads broker retreat

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US retail broker Brown & Brown fell 3.9 percent last week after reporting a drop in organic revenue growth.
The Florida-based broker said underlying growth dropped from 3.2 percent in Q2 to just 1 percent in the third quarter
Other brokers also declined, despite relatively positive news on the macroeconomic front from Europe along with encouraging reports on US retail spending and manufacturing.
London-based JLT fell 1.3 percent, while Aon lost 1.2 percent.
Big three broker Willis declined 1.8 percent. The global broker announced last week that McKinsey executive Dominic Casserley will become CEO on 7 January, taking the reins from long-term patriarch Joe Plumeri.