The costs of superstorm Sandy, which hit the north east of the US in October, to insurers is becoming increasingly clear.
Estimates have put the total liability at up to $25bn, and three Lloyd's of London companies have now revealed their losses.
Catlin said it expected claims of around $200m from Sandy, while Hiscox estimated a cost of £90m and Novae between $25m and $30m. On Friday another Lloyd's company, Beazley, put its total liability at around $90m, while on Monday Zurich Financial estimated $700m of pretax losses from Sandy as well as $58m of reinsurance premiums.
Shore Capital analysts said the Hiscox figure was lower than it would have expected "given Hiscox's presence in the direct and reinsurance markets in the US."
On Sandy generally, Espirito Santo concluded, among other things:
Sandy losses are manageable given the benign environment up to September 2012. We expect most companies to be just over catastrophe budget now for 2012 and as such Sandy turns what would have been an extraordinarily strong earnings year into a more average one;
On this basis and with returns on equity still very healthy (mid teens for Lloyds , more than 10% in Europe) we see no dividend risk .
In the market Catlin has lost 15p to 482.2p, Hiscox is down 5.7p at 463.3p, Beazley has fallen 2p to 173.9p but Novae has added 6.5p to 376.25p.
