The week's winners
Domestic & General up 17.8%
Wellington Underwriting up 14%
Goshawk up 10.8%
Atrium up 10.6%

The week's losers
Cox down 5.6%
Jardine Lloyd Thompson down 2%

The week's winners
Domestic & General up 17.8%
Wellington Underwriting up 14%
Goshawk up 10.8%
Atrium up 10.6%

The week's losers
Cox down 5.6%
Jardine Lloyd Thompson down 2%

Lloyd's just has to be different. Usually impenetrable and frequently quirky, what would be simple anywhere else ends up mired in complexity.

But maybe this time it's not such a bad thing.

This week's news has been predictably dismal - tales of huge sums vanishing off balance sheets, desperate gambles to recoup vast losses and slumping investor confidence.

So it can only be the Lloyd's magic that has stopped the world seeing some of the most dignified names at the world's oldest insurance market suddenly collapse.

The magic wand has been most active over Cox.

A nifty deal with the Lloyd's top brass ensures that Cox can wave goodbye to all its past losses - including the WTC - by handing over a pile of its assets. Effectively, it is swapping the family silver for a new future.

Or to use another metaphor, it is like the scene in the James Bond movie where the baddie gets away in his yacht and splits the vessel in two in a desperate bid to escape 007. He roars off into the blue, cackling madly, while his hapless henchmen are left to face the music.

If it works for Cox, the worst that can happen is that it mutates into a niche motor insurer with a dim memory of an illustrious past.

From Lloyd's point of view, it needs to avoid any of its operators going belly up and draining the central fund. That could be disastrous.

But no one would rule out some of Cox's peers needing a helping hand, either.

SVB was due to report results just after Insurance Times went to press, which were expected to reveal losses running close to £90m after tax.

The group admitted it was facing big losses back in August, so has been unable to hide its other problems under the WTC umbrella.

Hiscox, too, reported a £32.5m pre-tax loss and a heavy reliance on reinsurance - its Syndicate 33 has received claims totalling £378m.

For the last six months, the pundits have been predicting Lloyd's operators would go under. The weirdest thing would be if the old Lloyd's magic could keep them all alive.

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