Stockwatch

The week's winners
SVB up 16.3%
Zurich Financial Services up 9.9%
Allianz up 8.8%
Royal & SunAlliance up 8.7%

The week's losers
Goshawk down 4.4%
Chaucer down 3.6%

The traditional quiet of a bank holiday weekend masked some surprising goings-on in insurance.

Taken over the past year or so, all our winners this week must surely qualify as the most sluggish of stocks, first to fall and last to rise.

But analysts have seen value in Zurich and Allianz for a while and Royal & SunAlliance's determination to keep drawing the interminably long line under its dark days could be paying off. MM Warburg helped give Allianz a push by upgrading its recommendation

Elsewhere, Hiscox picked up the renewal rights to high net worth business in continental Europe from Chubb's European operation in a deal that expands one of the Lloyd's insurer key specialities. The deal gives Chubb a commission based on actual renewals, while Hiscox gets to build up its international retail side.

Hiscox, with stock steady at 145.5p, said there were "huge opportunities for growth", while Chubb said it would concentrate on ultra high net worth accounts.