By Carlos Pallordet

May 6 - (The Insurer) – The North American insurance composite, compiled by investment banks Stonybrook and Weild & Co, recorded its fourth straight week of gains, with all 12 industry groups in the index ending in positive territory.

The S&P 500 finished the week up 2.9% after posting its ninth consecutive daily gain, the longest winning streak for the benchmark since November 2004.

The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average rose 3.0% for the week while the Nasdaq-100 climbed 3.4%.

Meanwhile, the small cap Russell 2000 index was up 3.2%.

Stonybrook-Weild said the U.S. economy contracted by 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025, marking the first quarterly decline in three years. While the investment banks described this as "worrisome," they highlighted that the U.S. economy was still not in a recession as that is defined by two consecutive quarterly declines.

However, they suggested the market largely dismissed these concerns, buoyed by signs of U.S.-China trade compromise, moderately better-than-expected CPI and jobs reports and strong earnings beats from several large software companies.

“Consumer spending is decelerating, and tariff uncertainty is slowing business decisions. The outlook for GDP growth in 2025 has been cut back from 2.7% earlier in the year to around 1.8% due largely to tariffs raising the cost of imported goods and many domestic manufacturing inputs and also the business uncertainty that it creates,” Stonybrook-Weild said.

The banks noted Federal Reserve watchers have been cautious recently as the Fed’s dual objective to fight inflation and bolster the economy have been in conflict.

“The economy softened while inflation remains stubbornly high. The Fed can’t both raise and lower rates at once,” they explained.

“This week’s economic reports of a decelerating CPI and lower GDP, gives more room for rate cuts in the future. But apparently not soon enough for the market, as rates crept up this week at all maturities,” they concluded.

In the North American Insurance composite, advancers led decliners by 93 to 15. The two best-performing groups were micro cap insurers, up at 6.0%, and personal lines insurers, up 5.7%.

Among the latter, shares in leader Progressive jumped 6.7% for the week.

Meanwhile, Allstate, the second-largest company in the group by market capitalization, added 3.3%. The carrier revealed its property-liability combined ratio deteriorated by 4.4 percentage points to 97.4% in Q1 due to higher catastrophe losses driven by the California wildfires, but the underlying result improved by 3.8 points to 83.1%.

Shares in Kemper rose 5.5% while Mercury General added 6.3%.

Root and Kingstone companies were the only two companies in the industry group to finish in negative territory, down 4.0% and 3.3%, respectively.

The group of standard commercial insurers closed the week up 4.2%.

Cincinnati Financial topped the gains in the cohort, rising 7.4% in the week, despite reporting a Q1 combined ratio deterioration to 113.1% due to higher catastrophe losses.

The Hartford was the second-largest riser, adding 5.8% in the week.

Hanover Insurance Group took up third place, with shares climbing 5.4%, after the company reported an earnings beat for the first quarter, with results that included its combined ratio improving 1.4 percentage points to 94.1%.

Meanwhile, the group of reinsurers rose by 2.1% in the week.

SiriusPoint experienced the most significant increase, with shares up 8.5% in the week, followed by Reinsurance Group of America, up 5.2%.

Shares in RenaissanceRe rose 3.4%, following a fall of 2.2% in the previous week.

At the other end of the spectrum, Conduit Holdings was the most significant faller, with shares down 3.1%.

Leader Everest Group was the other faller in the cohort, losing 1.3% for the week, after reporting a 13.9 point deterioration in its combined ratio to 102.7% for the first quarter as a result of higher catastrophe losses.

The group of global brokers recovered from the previous week’s losses, with shares up 4.0% on average.

Aon led the gains, with a 6.1% rise, after falling 8.6% in the previous week.

Marsh McLennan and WTW added 3.7% and 3.3%, respectively, while shares in Gallagher were up 2.7%.

The two worst-performing groups in the composite were other brokers and distributors, up 1.1%, and life, annuity and accident insurers, up 1.7%.

The Stonybrook–Weild North American Insurance composite is up 9.9% on a year-to-date basis.

In this article, we have included a selection of industry comp tables published in full by Stonybrook and Weild & Co in their weekly update.