Sector movers: RSA, Jardine Lloyd Thompson and Direct Line drag non-life insurers lower

Non-life insurers were out of favour on Tuesday as a broker downgrade at RSA and a cool reaction to results from Jardine Lloyd Thompson and Direct Line weighed on sentiment.

General insurer RSA was trading 2.7% lower after analysts at Bernstein lowered their rating on the stock from 'outperform' to 'market perform', cutting their target price for the shares from 475p to 451p.

Panmure Gordon and Berenberg also cut their targets for RSA's shares on Tuesday.

Insurer, reinsurer and services outfit Jardine Lloyd Thompson dropped 1.8% after underwhelming investors with its 2014 results, which broadly met analysts' expectations. Underlying pre-tax profit was up 3% at £183m on revenues 13% higher at £1.10bn.

The company did acknowledge that the insurance rating environment is currently "challenging" but said it was confident in its revenue growth momentum.

Direct Line also declined 0.5% after striking a cautious tone on the outlook for UK motor and home insurance markets.

The company reported a 12% increase in full-year profits to £456.8m, but said that the "markets remain highly competitive with recent market conditions characterised by periods of market price deflation and of stability".

Sector peers Admiral, Beazley, Lancashire, Esure, Hiscox and Admiral were also out of favour.

Top performing sectors so far today
Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 18,288.27 +2.23%
Industrial Transportation 2,770.12 +0.41%
Mobile Telecommunications 5,113.01 +0.36%
General Industrials 4,425.68 +0.25%
Tobacco 44,386.56 +0.25%

Bottom performing sectors so far today
Health Care Equipment & Services 6,665.70 -2.93%
Construction & Materials 4,777.26 -1.45%
Automobiles & Parts 8,372.61 -1.43%
Support Services 6,927.50 -1.18%
Insurance (non-life) 2,058.10 -1.17%