Shares in insurance companies suffered huge falls today amid fears for the health of the sector.
Aviva – which reported a pre-tax loss of £1.3bn – led the fallers, down around 30% at 200p.
Both Friends Provident and Prudential recorded declines of more than 20%, the former down nearly 22% at 55p and the latter down 21% at 219p.
Standard Life, Old Mutual and Legal and General also saw double-digit plunges.
Standard Life was down more than 13% to 140.8p, Old Mutual fell 12.6% to 32.7, while L&G dropped nearly 12% to 33p.
Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays were affected by the carnage in the financial sector too, both down more than 10%.
Lloyds lost around 14% to 41p, Barclays was off nearly 13% at 75.3p
The FTSE 100 lost more than 100 points at one stage, threatening to take it back to the low it reached on Tuesday.
The blue-chip index hit a low today of 3543.04, about 31 points better than its close on Tuesday – its lowest level for six years.
Shortly before midday, it stood at 3560.19, down 85.68.
