Australia's three major listed insurance companies, AMP, NRMA and QBE, said they do not have big exposures to yesterday's US disaster. But they were concerned about the impact of the terrorist attacks on their investments in equity markets.
Some market watchers estimated global insurance groups would have to pick up a tab worth up to US$40bn (£27.2bn).
All three stocks lost approximatelately 7% yesterday.
AMP warned that if equity markets, particularly the UK, failed to recover before the end of 2001, returns from its equity investments would fall and reduce the operating revenues of its global asset manager Henderson Global Investors.
AMP added that while none of its US operations or properties had been affected by the terrorist attacks, it had frozen unit pricing in all products impacted by international capital markets.
QBE chief executive Frank O'Halloran said the company would have exposures through a number of portfolios to the terrorist attacks. QBE earns a large proportion of its income from markets outside Australia. However, he said the exposures were "substantially protected" by way of reinsurance.
Australia's biggest general insurer, NIGL, said it did not expect the fallout from the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon to have a material impact on its earnings results. Acting chief executive Ian Brown said as NIGL had reinsurance protection for its inwards portfolio the maximum impact on its boo
