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July 07, 2004 at 08:00 PM
Insurance industry analysts say carriers look good this year but could suffer from problems with annuity and life insurance guarantees.[@@]
“The last 2 quarters were some of the easiest in this sellsider’s career, with very few negative surprises and most companies reporting results in line [with] or better than expectations,” according to a mid-year outlook by Jason Zucker, a securities analyst at Fox Pitt, Kelton Inc., New York, a unit of Swiss Reinsurance Company, Zurich.
Life company stocks are cheap, and a stronger economy could help the performance of companies with big group life and group disability operations, Zucker writes.
But Zucker warns against investing in companies that depend heavily on sales of variable annuities, partly because of worries about “emerging exposures related to the new variable annuity guarantee features.”
Insurance credit and financial strength analysts at Fitch Ratings, Chicago, today gave a similar assessment of the first half of the year today at a mid-year life industry outlook teleconference.
