Reinsurers in confusion

The financial crisis, which has spread chaos on the biggest international financial markets, has just struck reinsurers. Several large reinsurance companies, have, reported significant losses in the third quarter of the year 2008. With AIG being wiped out and Yamato Life ruined by the crisis, reinsurers are dreading the prospect of being caught up in the same crisis which has already engulfed some direct insurance companies.

Consequently, Swiss Re, the reinsurance leader, has reported a negative net result of 304 million CHF (252 million USD) in the third quarter of 2008 against a profit of 1.46 billion CHF (1.29 billion USD) during the third quarter 2007.

Munich Re, on its part, has posted a profit, a hundred times as low as the one reported in the third quarter of 2007.

For Partner Re and Hannover Re, losses respectively accumulated during the first nine months of 2008 amount to 142.8 million EUR (180. 6 million USD) and 48. 72 million EUR (61. 64 million USD).