Mr. Oliver: There have certainly been a few disappointments and that will always be the case. I think that is probably more on a company by company basis and I think that often it's when some very rapidly growing companies have found that the insurance market is getting very competitive, and therefore has been some disappointment in the reduced rate of growth in these companies. In terms of the outstanding performance, I think we've continued to see very strong performance from some of the more recent insurance companies that are not the traditional big four -- AIG (AIG, 106 1/4, SIC6331, CT620), General Re (GRN, 208 3/4, SIC6331, CT620), Chubb (CB, 71 3/4, SIC6331, CT620), and Marsh McLennan (MMC, 76 13/16, SIC6411, CT621) --that investors have owned for years. The next tier is Allstate (ALL, 89 5/8, SIC6331, CT620), Ace (ACL, 99, CT620), EXEL (XL, 62 3/8, CT620), and Progressive (PGR, 105 9/16, SIC6331), all of whose share prices are up more than 50 percent this year. It's not that the others haven't done well -- they are up between 30 and 45 percent -- but that other group that I've mentioned has done remarkably well and as companies they are all doing innovative and creative things.
TWST: The pace of change in the insurance/financial services/banking
industry has been accelerating. How has the structure of the insurance
industry changed and what's the future going to look like?
So there's clearly a long way to go. The issue in the United States --
it's not if, it's when, and it may just be a little further away than we
all assume because the banks are going through a period of very, very
active consolidation and acquisition at the moment and that is where the
main focus of their activities is going to be. It's hard to imagine that
if you are in the middle of a major acquisition period, you are going to
devote as much activity to moving into a new field as you might once the
merger frenzy in your core business has slowed.
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