Stockwatch

The week's winners
Royal & SunAlliance up 10.2%

Allianz up 7.8%

The week's losers
Goshawk down 19.5%

Cox down 11.4%

Bob Mendelsohn shouldn't be breaking out the bubbly yet following this week's rise in Royal & SunAlliance's (R&SA) share price.

But at least it shows investors have not totally written off the UK's second largest general insurer.

Mendelsohn is fighting an uphill battle to convince anyone to put money into his outfit.

But last week's news that its Scandinavian interests are doing well and reports of Mellon Financial making an offer for its investment management arm suggest it could start to put last year's miserable results behind it.

R&SA is the majority owner of Codan Forsikring AS, and Mendelsohn told a Copenhagen newspaper it was on the lookout for an acquisition to grow its non-life business.

He was pleased with the Codan's performance after its own merger with Sweden's Trygg-Hansa.

A merger in Canada, which could have repercussions for the UK, headed closer last week.

Clarica Mutual Life got shareholders' nod to go for a stock merger with Canada's largest insurance company, Sun Life Financial, in a C$6.9bn (£3bn) deal.

Sun Life, which outsourced its UK back office operations this year, and sold off operations last year, could give Clarica the chance to test the market over here.

The FTSE All-Share insurance sector index rose last week to recover ground lost in late February, reaching 1531 on 7 March.

It slipped back to close on Monday at 1493.74.