Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) — Swiss Re Ltd., the world's second-biggest reinsurer, fell the most in six months in Zurich trading after Willis Re said reinsurance prices slid by as much as 25 percent in the Jan. 1 renewals round.

Swiss Re declined as much as 2.9 percent to 79.70 Swiss francs, the biggest loss since July 2 and valuing the company at 29.6 billion francs ($32.9 billion). That was the worst performance on the Bloomberg Europe 500 Insurance Index. The shares decreased 2.8 percent by 12:27 p.m.

A "cocktail of converging factors," including too much excess reinsurance capital, has fueled a soft buyers' market with dropping prices, Willis Re, the reinsurance brokerage of Willis Group Holdings Plc, said in an e-mailed report two days ago.

Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.

Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.