Ratings Analysts Narrow 9-11 Losses To About $3 Billion For L&H Industry
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Life and health insurance losses from the Sept. 11 attacks seem to be matching the original estimates.
The major insurance rating firms put out loss estimates of $2 billion to $5 billion in the weeks following the attacks.
Now that better numbers are available, Moodys Investors Service, New York, has revised its estimate to $3 billion in losses, with primary insurers paying $2 billion and reinsurers paying $1 billion.
Fitch IBCA, Duff & Phelps, Chicago, is estimating $2.7 billion in announced losses, with 30 primary life insurers paying $1.9 billion, and 25 life reinsurers and life units of multiline insurers paying $771 million.
Douglas Pawlowski, the Fitch director who compiled the report, says he expects the losses for primary insurers to hold steady and the reinsurance losses to continue to creep up.
"The primary insurer numbers are very good," Pawlowski says. "Its more difficult for the reinsurers to come up with a concrete number right now."
Pawlowski says one reinsurer, a life catastrophe pool run by Special Risk Pooled Administrators Inc., an affiliate of Lincoln National Corp., Fort Wayne, Ind., has not yet discussed its exposure.
SPRA can provide up to $125 million in individual policy reinsurance and $500 million in group policy reinsurance per catastrophic event, Pawlowski says.
Swiss Reinsurance Company, Zurich, is acquiring the unit from Lincoln National.
