Quake loss fears pile pressure on insurers

US and European insurance stocks slumped after a massive earthquake struck Japan, raising fears insurers face more bumper claims to add to a string of natural disasters in recent months. The quake off Japan''s north-eastern coast triggered a 10-metre tsunami that swept away ships, houses and farms and put Pacific basin countries on alert.
Reinsurers, which help insurance companies absorb large damage claims in exchange for a share of the premiums and typically have the greatest individual exposure to major natural catastrophes, took the brunt of the share price falls. The top three global players - Munich Re, Swiss Re and Hannover Re - were all down more than 5 percent by 1515 GMT, off early lows, while the Stoxx 600 European insurance index was off 2.4 percent.
In the United States, shares of insurers and reinsurers with actual or presumed exposure to Japan also fell broadly, with key Japanese market player Aflac Inc and Bermuda-based reinsurer Partner Re falling 2.6 percent and 3.5 percent respectively at the open. The broader S&P insurance index was down 0.9 percent. The industry said it was too early to estimate how much the earthquake would cost it.
"It is absolutely impossible to give you any clue of what that would mean to us," Munich Re Chief Executive Nikolaus von Bomhard told an analyst conference. A one-in-200 year Japanese earthquake would inflict a maximum loss on the company of about 2 billion euros, he said. Risk modelling firms are expected to publish initial estimates later on Friday, giving the first scientific guesses as to the likely impact on the insurance industry. Analysts said reinsurers, who have already had to pick up the bill this year for flooding and cyclones in Australia and last month''s earthquake in New Zealand, were in danger of missing profit forecasts for the year.
"It is now a near-certainty that assuming normalised developments for the rest of the year, this will be another year of above-average nat-cat losses for reinsurers, and earnings downgrades would be likely for 2011," Credit Suisse said in a research note.
PRICING POWER A major insured loss from the Japanese earthquake would eat into the industry''s capital, potentially forcing it to raise prices. That would reverse a three-year decline in premium rates for most types of insurance, reflecting stiff competition between well-capitalised insurers.